FoodCloud goes ‘Botton’s up’

By Deborah Butler & app; DE:FT (@deftfood)

My blog is a further update on the DE:FT research project (www.deftproject.org.uk) which is investigating whether digital tools such as apps can be used as a way of promoting more sustainable production and consumption through reconnecting consumers and producers, but we need to know more about best to involve diverse users, what information they might need and in what form and how to promote new technologies in the face of information overload and increasing public distrust.  In order to try and achieve this we have created three prototype apps,  FoodCrowd, ShopStamp,and FoodCloud and are in the process of testing FoodCrowd in schools and the other two apps on farms and in the countryside.

Last week I had the opportunity to try the FoodCloud app out on a ‘Food Trail’ courtesy of Sue and Aiden Nelson, the joint brains behind Yorkshire Food Finder (www.yorkshirefoodfinder.org). We have customised Food Cloud so it can be used to provide a background description of some of the different places that trails go to.  Let me explain further.

Sue and Aidan have devised a series of themed culinary trails linking Yorkshire food producers and Yorkshire restaurants.  Participants on the Food Trail get the opportunity to experience at first hand how some of Yorkshire's quality foods are created, bred or grown which can then be sampled on specially themed menus at some of the best eating places in the county.  So, you may ask, where does FoodCloud come in? I must admit, when I was at The Star, Harome eating my twice baked Yorkshire Tome cheese soufflé or sipping a half pint of the Great Yorkshire brewery’s best porter in the New Inn, Pickering, I was half thinking the same. 

One of the objectives of the Food Trail is having the opportunity to learn something about the environment and cultural history of the locations the trail passes through.  At the moment this is delivered courtesy of a very informative commentary given by Aiden as we passed various places and points of interest, and this is where the FoodCloud app could be used to great advantage in adding to the information available. 

How?

Initially FoodCloud was created to work when out on a farm walk for instance.  In order for the app to work successfully, however, the farmer needs to have created data about the farm and the crops being grown, adding information into what we call the ‘back end’ of the app.  The data inputting process is quite straightforward as we wanted a data base (the back end) which was simple and easy to use where the data added is displayed once the app is activated and opened up (the front end).  Although the Food Trail is not a walk, Sue and Aidan were able to input data about some of the key places on the food trail in the same way descriptive data could be added about a crop, which was then visible when the front end of the app was opened up. The following section describes how this worked in practice

‘Botton’s up’ Food Trail

The trail started off at The Star, Harome (www.thestaratharome.co.uk), worth a visit just to look at the amazing private dining room with its painted gabled ceiling.  The app gave a brief description of the pub and what was available there which Andrew Pern, the proprietor of The Star could then elaborate on in more detail.  From The Star we drove up onto the North York Moors, passing through managed moorland, black face sheep and the occasional red legged partridge.  It was my first ever visit onto the moors and I was blown away by the vast expanse and the brown, green and purple hues of the landscape, before negotiating a precipitous descent down to Botton and the Camphill Trust Community (www.cvt.org.uk).  The Camphill Community at Botton is one of nine rural and urban communities run by the Camphill Trust, a long established UK charity supporting adults with learning disabilities, mental health problems and other needs, supporting people in their home life, work, social and cultural activities.  The Botton centre is a rural community made up of five farms, two of which are dairy farms which supply the milk for the Botton creamery which we were lucky enough to be given a tour of by their resident cheese maker, Alistair.  We even got to taste some of the delicious hard and soft cheeses made and aged on site which can also be bought at the creamery shop and which complement some of the dishes prepared at The Star.  Next stop after lunch was a tour of The Great Yorkshire Brewery, a micro brewery located in the garden of the New Inn, Pickering, where their beer can be sampled and is on tap at The Star.  One of the brewery’s largest markets at the moment though is Japan, to where beer is shipped in kegs to be consumed by discerning Japanese beer drinkers.

Last but by no means least the trail ended at The Star where Andrew Pern gave us a guided tour of the pub, the guest rooms and the kitchens explaining how he had built the success of the pub on being able to source and use local Yorkshire produce which together with his culinary expertise had given The Star its award winning status.

Future developments.

Whilst the version of FoodCloud I took on the trail was designed more for farm walks rather than longer linear trails there is great potential to create a bespoke version of app drawing on our fieldwork ‘in the wild’ plus a little computer re-programming. In this way FoodCloud can enhance established connections between producers and consumers and help showcase the cornucopian foodscape of Yorkshire.

Cooking up an App

By Deborah Butler

Creating and testing digital tools such as apps is one of the research objectives of what we refer to as the DE:FT project or, to use its title in full, ‘Creating trust through digital traceability: sustainable food chains and new ways to connect producers and consumers’, funded by the RCUK’s Digital Economy Theme ( see http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/xrcprogrammes/Digital/pages/home.aspx).

Whilst we are not in the business of creating anything commercial, one of the aims of the inter-disciplinary project we are involved in, (see www.deftproject.org.uk) is to test the effectiveness of digital technologies for enhancing sustainability in the food and farming sectors, reconnection, information exchange and for reconnecting food consumers and producers. Hence we are creating digital tools that we can trial in the field with lots of different potential user groups so we can observe how the tools are used in practice, using in-depth, qualitative social science techniques to engage users and secure their input through live testing ‘in the wild’ (online, on-farm, in-shop). Hopefully from the digital tools we develop we can explore their potential to support sustainability in agriculture, rural development and food consumption.

Why make an app and what are they anyway?  A good question and one which I shall attempt to explain through the course of this blog.   ‘App’ is an abbreviation for application.  An app is a special type of software. It can run on the Internet, on a computer, or on a phone or other electronic device.  An app typically refers to software used on a smartphone or mobile device such as the Android, iPhone, BlackBerry or iPad, as in ‘mobile app’ or ‘iphone app’. The phrases ‘Web app’ or ‘online app” are also used in a business setting— meaning software that can be accessed and used whilst online, via a browser, instead of software residing on a computer (such as Microsoft Word).

The image above is of an app for on-line virtual grocery shopping! Open up the app on your smartphone, tap on one of the icons and it will take you into a virtual supermarket where you can buy your groceries, check them out and then get them delivered. We won’t be attempting anything quite as sophisticated as this but it is a good example of how much can be done through apps.

So how to start? As social scientists app creation was a completely new experience for us but with help from a very patient computer scientist who is also part of the project, we took up the challenge and began making apps, a process not unlike making a cake – although there’s no washing up and you don’t end up with anything to eat before and after the process has been completed.  What follows is my app making ‘recipe’ and, with apologies to Blue Peter you can view the ‘ones we made earlier’ at Test our Tools on the deft project website. Have a look and leave feedback at the forum site.  There is also a questionnaire survey you can complete the survey on how you think about and buy food, in shops and online.

Ingredients.

Ideas were gathered at a Consultation Panel meeting of project partners who are key players in UK food, farming and rural development.  We initially started out with 12 ideas and by the end of the meeting we had whittled these down to three which were the ones we have developed as prototypes.

You will need:

‘Post it’ notes

Pencils

Coloured paper

Scissors

Crayons

Method (can take a week plus)

1.  Download ‘how to make a paper prototype’ from the internet.  No, really!, this web page and others like it proved invaluable and sets out the ways in which making an app can be approached. See http://www.paperprototyping.com/what.html if you want to start cooking up your own app.

2.  Have a cup of tea and decide who is going to play the computer and who is the user

3.  Practice saying ‘computer says no’ (with apologies to Little Britain).

4.  Each person takes an idea and, using ‘Post-its’ creates a very rough flow diagram of what they think the app should include, such as recipes, links to local food outlets.

5.   Feedback to each other, re-ordering ‘Post – its’, scrapping some, introducing others.

6.  Try them out on each other with one person being the computer.

7. ‘Open up the app’ by removing the ‘Post it’ to reveal the menu underneath then follow one of the options in the menu, seeing if it is viable to do and if it will link to some of the other options.

8.  Build in a ‘home’ button so it is possible to take each ‘Post-it’ back to the ‘home ‘page.

9.  Once this process has been repeated, reviewed and repeated again create a new iteration.

10. Allow your new creation to cool for a while whilst you have a cup of tea and think about where to go next.

11.  Start all over again until each phase in the app has an end outcome which can be related back to the aims of the app.

12.  Turn the ‘Post-its’ into powerpoint slides add in hyperlinks and external links.

13.  This is the stage where it becomes clear which slides do not link to each other or are too complicated.

Results

14.  Discuss with computer scientist and graphics expert to find that the app, whilst all singing and dancing, will need the resources of Apple or Microsoft to build and will take at least 3 years to make.

15.  Review and scale down the paper prototypes.

16.  Re-test power point slides and adjust where needed.

Discussion

Yes, well, there was a lot of that.  Once we had finalised our three prototypes, FoodCloud, Shopstamp and GradeBack, we put them on the website (see above) for further comments which can be left at the forum page.  We also took them to Bishop Burton, to an East Riding of Yorkshire Local Food Network event to test them with other audiences so that we are testing them ‘in the wild’ so we can then create further iterations in response to the feedback. The comments we have had already have been very useful as have the discussions we have had with other retailers and people involved in local food networks.  One of the biggest stumbling blocks we have encountered however is lack of mobile signal, especially in rural areas and until coverage becomes more uniform and accessible this will limit the use of digital tools in certain parts of East Yorkshire.  As one local resident of Pocklington put it, ‘well you’ve heard of these hot spots haven’t you? We’re in a ‘not spot’, so not very useful’.

We are still in the early stages of the research but are looking for new avenues to pursue, such as working with local schools, developing digital tools that will provide a link to where and how food is grown, how it is used and how it might fit into a healthy diet. Hopefully the apps can be developed so they can be integrated into parts of the national curriculum but in a way that they are fun and the children enjoy using them.

Please take a look at the website and leave your comments on our prototype apps. There’s also a link to a short survey on food shopping and the use of digital tools, so please complete that too!