Designing A Mobile Application For Permaculture Agriculture Essay.

For this assignment you are required to develop the design for a mobile application allowing the user to become an effective permaculture agriculturalist. Your application can be kept functionally quite simple, but it needs to be engaging and robust.

You should use the scenario-based design method as taught in the module, particularly in Chapter 3 of Benyon, D. (2014) Designing Interactive Systems 3rd edition (Pearson) or  Chapter 3 of Benyon (2017) Designing User Experience (Pearson) and more specifically using Figure 3.12 that details the products of the design process.

Permaculture is a strategy model for sustainable, food-producing landscape representing the diversity and pliability of natural ecologies. In addition, it is a melodious amalgamation of the landscape with individuals offering non-material and material needs in a sustainable manner. Notably, the design focuses on evolving the food systems such that it encompasses the broader setting of structural design and human connections. Thus, it is an all-inclusive structural approach for every human need that works on developing change by altering underlying patterns. Prior to breaking the soil and scheming edifices, permaculture practitioners first observe features and patterns of the surrounding at the identified site. This may include visiting the setting at various day times, during different weather and seasonal conditions, and observing the scene from multiple viewpoints. Another element that would encourage individuals to embrace permaculture practices may be a global view that comprises an established sense of habitation. For instance, if persons feel linked to their society and environment, they are more probable to adopt permaculture. Hence, humans can create a sense of place by detecting patterns, procedures, and cycles within nature.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to create a design based on a mobile application enabling users to become efficient permaculture agrarians. Notably, the application will be kept functionally simple, although it requires to be engaging and vigorous.

Principles of Permaculture  

Observe and Interrelate

This code represents the alternating interaction and observation methods depending on a particular structure to generate experience and knowledge. The adaptive supervision is a systematic technique is a fundamental aspect of this principle as it enhances asset management through learning from administrative outcomes. Thus, several management choices to reach particular management objectives are applied. Conversely, the monitoring of the structure feedbacks to the supervision outputs provides decision guidance to regulate the administration practices. For instance, the adaptive organization is utilized to analyze and enhance the efficiency of agro-environmental systems in shielding the corn bunting. The results obtained from various researches on adaptive administration show that this method has the potential of improving agricultural organizations. Particularly ecological pliability.

Achieve a Yield

The farm designs structured and managed with permaculture have to attain an adequate yield, and to supply humans with energy, resources, and food. Contrary, this code also focuses on efficiency of production, and calls for a more all-inclusive understanding of yield to economic, social, and ecologic yields. Consequently, an emergy scrutiny provides a value-free conservational accounting approach on a holistic structural model, which is appropriate to measure agro-ecosystem yields based on the sense of efficacy.

Literature Review

Implementing Self-Regulation and Admitting Responses

The purpose of permaculture is to develop systems that are self-regulating and self-sustaining. Positive responses accelerate establishment and energy accumulation within the agricultural structures. Notably, this is most suitable at the early phase of the design. On the other hand, negative feedbacks shield the system from variability through over-usage. Besides, each element within a land utilization system needs to be as self-dependable as possible to elevate the suppleness against turbulences.

The enrichment of modifiable bionetwork services like a natural pest control, nutrient cycling, and water and soil quality parameters are the most frequent applications of this code (Bach, and Krebs, 2018). Nevertheless, strengthening of stabilizing responses in ecological structures such as those regulating ecosystem services assist in maintaining a favored and irrepressible system of ecosystems, and elevates sturdiness against external stress, for instance, climate change.

These are part of an agile technique that assists in shifting the focus from writing about requirements to discussing them. Typically, they are utilized in the development of agile software to capture the description of a particular software characteristic from an end-user viewpoint. Thus, they describe the type of users, what they require, and why. The essence of user stories is that they encourage cooperation as it allows teams to discuss through the wanted functionality of an item, and serves as a medium for deeper analysis.

When designers work on an item solely within their silos, the outcome is an unpredictable product that is unmatched to the needs of users. Hence, user stories enable teams with distinct expertise to come together and discuss through product functionalities. According to Interaction Design Foundation (n.d.), the general format for user stories is: “As a, l want, for this.” The use cases provide the interaction between individuals and devices. Thus, user stories provide an analysis on how a system is utilized, and needs to describe what people do, and what the structure does. Importantly, each user story covers may slight variations in situations and many concrete scenarios.

These are concrete exemplifications of the various forms of individuals that they service or system is being intended for. Importantly, personas need to have a name, background, and some objectives. After the introduction of persona ideas by Alan Cooper, they have gained acceptance as a means of capturing acquaintance about the people the service or system is designed for (Blomkvist, 2002). In 2007, Cooper linked personas to his ideas of objective-linked design. Due to this fact, the former can do things based on personal systems as they want to achieve individual goals, and undertake meaningful actions using the structure that a designer will develop.

User Stories

Designers must recognize that they are not structuring for themselves, but instead they establish personas such that they can visualize whom they are scheming for. Hence, they establish personas to put themselves in other individual’s shoes. As any new structure is probable to be utilized by various forms of people, it is essential to create multiple distinct personas.  For instance, when designing website for persons interested in Robert Louis Stevenson, designers developed personas for a tutor in Germany, a lecturer from England, and a child in Africa. Therefore, such a dissimilar group of individuals have very different aspirations and objectives, and also differ psychologically, physically, and usage terms they would make of the site.

The conceptual scenarios are more abstract compared to stories. Much of the perspective is stripped away during the abstraction process, and similar stories are united. Additionally, the scenarios are specific useful for generating design thoughts, and for understanding the system requirements. The abstraction process is one of the aggregation and classification which refer to moving from details of particular individuals undertaking certain actions in a unique context using specific pieces of technology to a more general description that still manages to catch the importance of the action. Therefore, the combination of classification and aggregation produce abstractions. Importantly, there are various abstraction degrees, and it is a major skill that developers use to settle on the suitable level.

Each conceptual scenario may spawn lots of concrete setups. When developers are working on a specific issue, they may occasionally identify some characteristics that apply only under particular situations. At this point, they may create a more certain elaboration of a setup, and connect it to the original. Hence, one reasonably abstract setting may spawn multiple concrete embellishments that are advantageous for exploring certain problems. Additionally, points that draw attention to potential design problems and features can be incorporated to the scenarios.

Concrete setups also start to determine a certain interface design and division of functions between devices and people. Furthermore, the latter is particularly valuable for envisioning and prototyping design philosophies, and for an appraisal because they are more dogmatic regarding some technological aspects.

A Scenario-based Design Approach

The use of various forms of settings throughout design can be dignified into a setting-based design approach. According to figure 1, the items of the design process are shown as processes and boxes inform of clouds. Aside from the four distinct scenario types, four other relics are produced during the strategy procedure: requirements and issues, setup corpus, conceptual model, and design language. The system specification is the amalgamation of all the multiple objects produced during the creation process.

Personas

It is fundamental to note the connection between identifying design restraints, and use of settings. For most evaluations and envisionments, the setups have been made more concrete, which impose design restrictions. Contrary, this results do not mean that a developer needs to structure a new physical and firm setting each time he, or she desires to envision a potential strategy. It may be possible that designers imagine a setup with specific design restrictions imposed, which assists them in evaluating the design. The primary items that are discussed include conceptual model, design language, setting corpus, and requirements and issues.

List of Requirements

The requirement qualifications depend on screenshots, prototypes, and other mediums. When written they must be articulated in vivid, unambiguous, and worded such that it can be assessed whether the necessity has been attained in the final structure. Conventionally, the necessities are split into two forms; non-functional and functional.  Some of the functional necessities comprise what the structure must do, while non-functional ones are based on the quality that the system must achieve. These qualities may be critical elements in the suitability, sales, and product usage. Additionally, non-functional necessities consist of various features of the design such as aesthetics and pictures, performance, usability, security, maintainability, legal restraints, and cultural tolerability.

For both forms of requirements, a designer is not limited to the type of technology he or she may use to achieve the required results. Notably, this falls in the later part of the structure-activity. The list of requirements may include a participative design, interviews, questionnaires, probes, card sorting approaches, functioning with groups, fieldworks, and artefact collections. These requirements are facilitated by the abstraction and analysis process that help in determining the functions a new system should possess.

Conceptual Model

A data ideal outcomes from the process of theoretical modelling includes creating the setup, and understanding the products and activities that are evident from the evaluation of the sketches. The theoretical approach indicates the primary objects in the structure, their aspects, and the connections that occur between them (Benyon, 2014). The model is a crucial section of interactive structure designs that are occasionally ignored. Thus, having a vivid, well-structured conceptual approach makes it easier to design such that individuals can create a good, and precise system model. In addition, the latter forms the foundation of the data architecture of a structure, and the metaphor utilized in the design.

Setup Corpus or Sketches

Conceptual Scenarios

In the approach, the designer aims to create a representative and thought-through sketch based on the various user stories. In addition, some of these will be general, some will be specific, some will be vague, some will straightforward, while others will be simple. At some point, the designer may need to put these incongruent familiarities together in order to obtain a high-degree and abstract view of the primary actions that the item is to aid.

 According to figure 2, the design decision emerged useful to the HIC idea. The separation of actions and items, and the provision of a chief data space provides a vivid and simple theoretical model; where on one side contains the objects while the other side contains the actions. Such a clear and simple model goes a long way in certifying that the interface is instinctive. Sketch scenarios may comprise several settings depending on the intricacy of the domain. For instance, in a HIC study there are at least setups, while for an MP3 application there are five. Notably, the aim of the sketches is to identify the settings at any abstraction level that captures a suitable generality level, which will be valuable across various features that are verified within the domain.

Design Language

The structure language produced comprises of a set of normal interaction patterns, and all the physical traits of a design such as shapes, icons, colors, button types, and sliders. These are combined with theoretical objects and actions, and a “look and Feel” of the structure is complete. A consistent structural language suggests that individuals may need only to learn a restricted number of design components, then they can handle various situations. Thus, it determines how developers build meaning into items that help people to acknowledge the different forms of objects. Importantly, any language offers a way of articulating things, while a structural language provides a means of conveying design impressions.

The design languages assist in ensuring transparency, helping individuals to understand what is happening on a device’s inside. Additionally, they promote knowledge transferability from one device to the next. For instance, one Nokia phone user can expect to find a similar design on another Nokia device. Due to this fact, people will be more willing to take chances to use a device, and will expect specific behaviors, functions, or structures.

Conclusion

The connection on how setups can be utilized throughout a design procedure depends on stories that support understanding, and a theoretical settings abstract from stories to offer generic actions. A scenario sketch is created such that it is discussed and assessed at design team lessons, and the contribution of stakeholders. The most firm forms of scenarios are utilized to envision, or analyze certain interactions. Once a developer has amassed a collection of stories, common aspects will begin to arise. In this case, multiple stories may result in a conceptual scenario that describes some necessities for a hi-tech appointment structure. For instance, individuals with any level of computer skills can contact health practitioners’ surgery at any time through the internet, and check at what time each medical personnel is free. As a result, they can easily book a time and get an appointment confirmation. Therefore, finding a suitable abstraction level at which to define things for a give purpose is a primary skill of a developer.

References

Bach, S and Krebs, J. (2018). Permaculture-scientific evidence of principles for agroecological design for farming systems. Sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327568666_Permaculture-Scientific_Evidence_of_Principles_for_the_Agroecological_Design_of_Farming

Benyon, D. (2014). Designing interactive systems. Pearson Education Limited. Retrieved from https://notendur.hi.is/mae46/Haskolinn/2.%20misseri%20-%20Vor%202017/Viðmo?tsforritun/Bo?k/Designing.Interactive.Systems.A.Comprehensi

Blomkvist, S. (2002). Persona–an overview. Department of Information Technology, Human-Computer Interaction. Retrieved from https://it.uu.se/edu/course/homepage/hcidist/vt05/Persona-overview.pdf

Interaction design Foundation, (n.d.). User stories. Interaction Design Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/user-stories