Molly

Molly, now 85, has enjoyed a long and gratifying career working in the BBC, both in London, and in Belfast. For almost 15 years, Molly was the sole Information Officer working in the BBC press office. Using only her knowledge, the typewriter, phone and a copy of the Radio Times, she was able to deal with members of the public's complaints, queries and comments regarding BBC television and radio services. Molly really loved her job, and puts her enjoyment down to the social and personal interactions she could have with the callers and workmates. This is one of the aspects of the job she feels is missing from today's Information Service, where the operators must simply give the Company standard response instead of getting any real personality or opinions.

Today, Molly's passion is listening to the radio, in particular BBC Radio 4. Although her eyesight may have deteriorated throughout the years, she still has the same attitude, strong opinions and love of social interaction as she did back in her working days. Through her extensive listening to the radio, she has become increasingly knowledgeable about the programs and topics she hears on Radio 4.

With the current method of automation and impersonal human interaction we were confident our idea would be successful. This in mind, we set about looking for a solution to the lack of personal, social experience to this interaction.

We developed two devices. Molly and Gerry.

Molly

Named after Paddy's grandmother, Molly allows her to act as a social moderator, collating complaints and opinions for the BBC about radio 4. Her role requires her to record both a message to the BBC and a message back to the community whenever she has a moment. The BBC message would be a summary of all comments received at that time, where as the community message would be more personal to let the listeners know their comment had been considered and valued. This informality will allow for people to be far more open, honest and willing to comment again.

Gerry

Gerry (named after Paddy's late grandfather) allows people to express their opinions about Radio 4 in a simple and encouraging manner. This has been designed to be used by a community of 10-20 people who are local to Molly but the nature of the design allows it to be scalable to almost any radio 4 listeners.

As we were collecting content for a our video, we found that there are many people who have wanted to comment but searching for an email address or phone number is too much effort. Thus the decision for a separate object, Gerry. This enables the user to pick up the device in any situation, when they feel like it. No contact details required.

The main benefits to the BBC is that it will provide them with feedback from a collective of people, the kind who would rather shout at the radio rather than actually get in touch with the BBC. On top of this, the feedback will be clear and concise, summarised by someone with years of experience in extracting relevant information from comments - Paddy's Gran molly. Overall this should allow the BBC to provide a better service to its customers based on feedback from them.

For Paddy's Gran it will provide her with a new stance in her community. Not only will she be using the skills and knowledge that she has gathered throughout her life, she will be working in a very sociable manner, something which she has been missing since her retirement and especially since she has become a lot less mobile than she once was.

Reflection

As a company, we have worked very well together but there have been many times that we have come to a problem which can only be resolved by talking to Molly. This really emphasises the limitations of designers and how key it is that the user is central throughout the process. Molly has been very influential, not just at the initial research but throughout this project. We have been able to stay in constant contact with her which has been extremely beneficial as a number of points have been raised and resolved through her input. We have also kept in touch with BBC PR, where Molly used to work, who have been positive and supportive of our idea. We believe it is truly important to keep the user involved through the design process.

The social side of working is an area that we believe is very important to the success of our project, we understand the need for social values. Throughout the project we have kept in mind the ways in which the devices can improve Molly's social activity.

We have thoroughly enjoyed this project, it has given us a chance to use our separate skills to design something which we believe could benefit a community of people as well as give someone who is willing and able to continue working the ability to do so.