4) THEMATIC ANALYSIS

After coming up with these ideas, my group met up to conduct a thematic analysis. A thematic analysis allowed us to group our findings into themes and analyse how these themes might interact with each other (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Using sticky notes, a white-board, and a dry erase marker we started to categorise our ideas into groups with labels representing what these groups meant.

Many iterations occurred throughout this process, reflecting how ideas can evolve with further analysis. Once we had created our themes, we conducted another round of iterations to identify even smaller, more specific groupings.

From this exercise, we came up with about 12 different main themes. It was interesting to look at our findings because some of them seemed obvious upon entering the gardens, while others take more energy and effort to uncover. For example, the amount of data collection occurring in the gardens is not always immediately obvious to visitors. This inspired me to think about how we could design something that uncovers these hidden systems in the garden. The main finding that connected to this idea was data accessibility. How could we create something that not only showed visitors data collection in the garden, but also helped them to understand what these things mean?

Other main insights we collected from our thematic analysis were enjoyment and community. The space acts as a communal bridge where people come to reconnect with nature, have fun and relax. We wanted to make sure that whatever we designed could be enjoyed by people of all ages and in both individual and group settings.

Our established domain:

Users: Families

Concept: Something digital users will directly interact with

Where: Throughout different areas within the Urban Nature Garden

Purpose: To educate visitors about the data collected in the garden

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), pp. 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa