University Of Nottingham

Campus Innovation

Using the power of collaboration and innovation to shape campus spaces that meet the needs of future students

The University Of Nottingham Students’ Union, in partnership with a range of other UON stakeholders, wanted a more purposeful future for their huge and imposing Portland Building. They reached out to us for their first ever co-creation project, looking to understand the current role of the space among users and exploring the future purpose of the building, with a focus on student needs.

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Using a participatory approach and bringing inspiration from the fields of architecture/design (both in the public and private sectors), we took members of the Student Union, university staff and students through a four stage process of in-situ methodologies. These ranged from intercept interviews and ethnography to open innovation workshops, enabling us to gather valuable cultural insights to inform the re-development of the space.

Our work contributed to the creation of a set of implementation guidelines on what the future student hub should stand for, and how to integrate it within the university campus, complimented with illustrations of what the space could look like from both professional and student designers. The work has been nominated for the MRS Virginia Valentine Award for Cultural Insights in 2014.

In July 2014 the SU announced that its plans – informed by our research – have been accepted by the University and are currently sitting with architects. Come back in 2017 to see the revamped union in action. Check out the plans here

  • Narrated Galleries

    We love films, but narrated galleries – fusing showreels of still images and audio of participant commentary – creates outputs that allow for high levels of reflection and audience empathy. Ideal for user experience work, in other words

  • Crowd Communities

    We’ve a wealth of experience at setting up and managing communities for clients, with learnings on how best to engage audiences and a full box of tricks for maximising what we get out of the work – including geo tagging, streaming in social media data and a mobile optimised platform

  • Pinterest

    We’ve used Pinterest to really good effect on a number of projects recently, helping us to explore differences and commonalities among different typologies in areas such as fashion and style, home, holidays and entertainment. Engagement levels with participants always rank high, and clients love the vividness and clarity of the findings.

  • Citizen Journalism

    Citizen journalism works on the principle of making reporters of our participants, briefing them to capture what’s happening in the lives of their friends and family via video dispatches and blogging. It gets us places where we can’t otherwise get. It bypasses the bias of having a researcher in attendance. People are often more accurate reporters on those around them than on themselves, so that’s another bias circumnavigated.

  • Network Audits

    If you want to really understand how people interact with those around them, it’s logical to research interconnected groups of friends, family and work colleagues. First developed as part of our award winning word of mouth research for Guardian News & Media, and since then refined and reconfigured across a range of global projects, our network audit approach helps us understand who’s influencing who as authentically as possible.