The focus of this course was research. We got the theme safety in Scheveningen. Trough field research, desk research, surveys, and interviews we concluded that there was not one specific safety problem. Our research showed that the residents from Scheveningen do not have a safety issue, they actually feel very safe. There were some irritations, like dog poo on the street or neighbors who were too loud. We came up with the design question:
How can a service help to improve the safety in Scheveningen?
The meaning of safety in the question is very broad, a loose lying sidewalk tile can also be considered as an unsafe situation.
‘Hub is a kind of gathering place. We wanted to make a hub for the residents to report their safety issues. For a more personal touch, we named him Huub.’
With Huub you have more control over the safety in your neighborhood. In the Huub app, you can make a report if you come across an inconvenience, an unsafe situation or even if your trash cannot be emptied by the local government. Huub can quickly help you and take care of unsafe situations.
The Huub system works through reports made by local residents via the app. These reports are verified by the smart street lights in the neighborhood. These smart street lights contain various sensors, which can check the area from which the report was sent. For example, whether there is a lot of noise in the environment. If it appears that the message corresponds to the data of the smart street lamps, a security company is called in to take care of the report. But we also encourage the residents to take care of the situation themselves, unless it’s an unsafe situation.
We made Huub into a quick prototype.