Malakoff

In 2008, one of the main workings of the city of Nantes in France, is the rehabilitation of the area of Malakoff where most of the population living there has modest incomes and various cultural origins. This area of the city is geographically enclaved between a railway and the river and the new initiative is to make the area more connected to the rest of the city by building a bridge and renovating most of the housing. Malakoff inhabitant aren't forgotten in this project and are taking part in the reflections for their futute area represented by associations. Initiating a global reflexion that inscribe itself in a wider european initiative, the will of the municipality is help the inhabitaints of the area to be as connected to the city and the rest of the world as the place they are living in.

Client The city of Nantes. For this project, a consortium of several partners has been created, including sociologists, developpers, designers and consultants in IT projects.

Brief Design a Service and UI for a bootable USB key with all the necessary open-source tools for an easy startup in the computer world. We should keep in mind that our work had to be usable by people who access for the first time to personal computing. The interfaces must fit several technical constraint such as 800x600 resolution and codable in XUL+JS

Because this project involved different teams with different competences and starting the project at the same time, we decided to drive the project by using agile method of project management. This project required a solid understanding of the Malakoff inhabitants. We started then by studying way of livings, going to Malakoff to meet people and associations and then establish precise profiles using personas. When then created a flash proof of concept and a XUL mockup of an interface that gives access on the same screen, to several tools and software usefull in the every day of life.

PS This project is a collaborative project with two interaction designers, Diane Faidy and Amaury Godec