Research Survey on issues affecting permaculture

Hell all,

I am an MSC Student looking for permaculturist, full time or part time farmers or related field who are willing to take part in a survey for my coursework. I need people willing to share there stories or experiences on issues affecting permaculture. Personas will be used as well. I am expected to design a possible system to fix the issues you will be sharing.

Questionnaire.....

Name
Job: What do you do for a living,
Share a few details about your self(likes, hobbies, location, anything you are comfortable with or if you will like me to use your profile details please indicate as well.)
The issues you have or had with permaculture? (Stories of your experiences)

My Paper is due in 10days. I waited this long because i could not find the right  group of people. Please help me achieve this goal. Thank you.

Here is a sample of a persona from a book i am working with. Please note that these details will be used on the paper i am working on.

Hi!
So to clarify, you want a story about an issue, so that you can use the story to design a solution, correct?

How complex do you want? Something that the solution is "build a swale" or one that ends up with a solution that involves a ton of diagrams and research? And do you want it to a something we already know what we are doing, or you hoping to have someone implement your solution?

What exactly is the class you are doing this for? An Earthworks class has different problems than an Integrative Living class, or a Passive House design class, or a thatching class, or a class on Plant Guilds  :D

I bet we can give you whatever you need, if we know exactly what you want. We have lots of people, and lots of stories, and lots of problems that we have either solved or are looking for help with.

Here is the Topic as well as the guidelines.

“Permaculture is a maker’s culture that provides new insights into materials, form and design (Ingold, 2012). Practitioners need to work with and be sensitive to the environment in which they are situated and these constraints contribute to the philosophy.”
(Egan, Benyon & Thompson, 2017)


For this assignment I am required to develop the design for a mobile application allowing the user to become an effective permaculture agriculturalist. Your application can be kept functionally quite simple, but it needs to be engaging and robust.

The submission should not exceed 2000 words (excluding formatting), with maximum 500 words going towards Introduction, and maximum of 200 words going towards Conclusion. You should include a section for each of the products of the design process:
 Introduction (Explain your understanding of permaculture, motivations behind the project choice, objectives you aim to achieve through the design);
 User Stories;
 Personas;
 Conceptual scenarios;
 Conceptual model;
 Concrete scenarios;
 List of requirements;
 Sketches;
 Design Language;
 Conclusion (critical reflection about scenario driven
design process)

So basically, i need actual experiences with issues to enable me develop an app that will potentially fix the issues from the experiences shared.

Ok. Here's a story:
My name is Pearl Sutton. I'm a 56 year old female, an artist, cook, and natural healer. I have 4 acres of land in Zone 6 that I will put a house on. The acreage slopes down toward the north at about a 12% grade, and I need to design water control features and a planting layout that works with the available light. Things  I will want to plant include trees, shrubs, vines, flowers and herbs, to make art with, cook with, use for healing, and sell any excess for income. The topsoil on the property ranges from 6 feet deep, to rocky outcrops of limestone where the soil has eroded.

How's that?

This is really great and very helpful pearl. I will need a few more people to respond as well. it will count towards my approach to the research.

So that is about what you are looking for?
If so, expect more replies soon :D

Replies to this thread DO count toward a chance to win Jasmine Dale's book "Permaculture Design Companion"

Yes, it is. I hope I get more responses pretty soon. Thank you for taking part in the survey!

Hi Abimbola.
I'm a 46-year-old female (with a spouse and a 20-year-old kid) living on the periphery of one of Brazil's largest cities, in a less affluent residential area. I have a VERY SMALL urban lot on a partial slope, 140m2, in zone 9B (subtropical, occasional frost and snow, wet, at altitude).
I began growing greens and sweet corn, and at this point am producing fruit, herbs, vegetables and legumes that form the base of my family's diet. I came to permaculture looking for lower impact options as I developed my plant skills in a place where outside inputs are not always easy to obtain. I harvest rainwater, take advantage of light availability, wind exposure, and thermal mass to utilize micro-zones in my small space, and added rabbits to my system to eat my kitchen waste and produce fertilizer (and perhaps potentially become a meat source or income stream). I improve my nearly 100% clay soil with mulched sugar cane bagasse (what would otherwise become trash from a local sugarcane juice vendor around the corner) and bokashi fermentation (my alternative to composting).
I work full time and during my busy season the farm only gets my weekends. One of my long-term goals is to work less and farm more, on a bigger space (which will have its own unique characteristics to harness).

Howdy,

Mobile app design, eh? Sounds somewhat open ended, and there should be more than enough challenges to yield fruitful app ideas!

My name is George, and I've been reading about and researching permaculture for many years now, and have read through the Designers' Manual and other books and articles on design.  I recently changed careers and am beginning to plan out my farm and implement a few designs here and there. I am also extensively traveling, though.  

Challenge:
While I feel very familiar with a variety of permaculture-related topics, there is one thing missing: taking a PDC.  I wish there was an app (or website) that I could go to which would show ALL available Permaculture Design Courses and classes around the whole world.  Specifically, I'd like to be able to filter and see WHEN they are, WHERE they are, HOW MUCH they cost, WHO is sponsoring or teaching them, and what CLIMATE(s) they address in design, and what LANGUAGE they teach in.  I want to filter and find not just workshops and enrichment classes, but courses that offer the CERTIFICATE.  I'd like to be able to easily find the nearest, soonest, cheapest, longest, PDC, without having to search a dozen websites around the world, sifting through outdated class postings or facebook groups.  Then I'd like to click on a link to go to the specific course's page to learn more and register if the course is right for me.

Also, here are a few apps that William Horvath recommends, which may help with further ideas down the road:

https://permacultureapprentice.com/permaculture-apps/

Tereza Okava wrote:Hi Abimbola.
I live on the periphery of one of Brazil's largest cities, in a less affluent residential area. I have a VERY SMALL urban lot on a partial slope, 140m2, in zone 9B (subtropical, occasional frost and snow, wet, at altitude).
I began growing greens and sweet corn, and at this point am producing fruit, herbs, vegetables and legumes that form the base of my family's diet. I came to permaculture looking for lower impact options as I developed my plant skills in a place where outside inputs are not always easy to obtain. I harvest rainwater, take advantage of light availability, wind exposure, and thermal mass to utilize micro-zones in my small space, and added rabbits to my system to eat my kitchen waste and produce fertilizer (and perhaps potentially become a meat source or income stream). I improve my nearly 100% clay soil with mulched sugar cane bagasse (what would otherwise become trash from a local sugarcane juice vendor around the corner) and bokashi fermentation (my alternative to composting).
I work full time and during my busy season the farm only gets my weekends. One of my long-term goals is to work less and farm more, on a bigger space (which will have its own unique characteristics to harness).

Thank you for sharing this. Asides time and space, what other challenges do you encounter?

George Yacus wrote:Also, here are a few apps that William Horvath recommends, which may help with further ideas down the road:

https://permacultureapprentice.com/permaculture-apps/

Thank you for sharing this.  It will definitely help me

Here is a sample of the persona required. I may require a few more details please


You can send me a personal message if you are not comfortable stating your Age on the forum

For anyone who just wants to see the relevant page of that pdf file (and miss the programming stuff in it)  here is the persona profiles example page.

Abimbola Ayo wrote:
Thank you for sharing this. Asides time and space, what other challenges do you encounter?

Changing weather patterns (more extremes recently, need to consider when planting), difficulties adapting northern-hemisphere and mostly US-focused guidance/resources to southern-hemisphere, and few resources that address my specific regional problems (bugs, illnesses, etc).

And although I have no clue what it would matter how old I am, I edited my post to put my age in.

Pearl Sutton wrote:For anyone who just wants to see the relevant page of that pdf file (and miss the programming stuff in it)  here is the persona profiles example page.

Thank you. I really appreciate your help.

Pearl Sutton wrote:And although I have no clue what it would matter how old I am, I edited my post to put my age in.

I just did the same and added a touch more info.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Abimbola Ayo wrote:
Thank you for sharing this. Asides time and space, what other challenges do you encounter?

Changing weather patterns (more extremes recently, need to consider when planting), difficulties adapting northern-hemisphere and mostly US-focused guidance/resources to southern-hemisphere, and few resources that address my specific regional problems (bugs, illnesses, etc).

Okay.

Okay, so I breezed through the posted PDF, and noticed its focus is on the UX design process, rather than mobile app design.

So I think I'm having trouble understanding the desired end state for the project in regards to educational scope or purpose.

It wouldn't be difficult for us to list notional permaculture people archetypes -- to be developed into personas, or found on the forum already.

People on the permies forums are generally:
A)Looking for land access
B)Looking for experience opportunities (or PDCs)
C)Looking for specific technical ideas for solving specific problems
D)Learning casually, for fun, or to gain skills
E)Building community or sharing an experience or project
F)Going through the permaculture design process in general for a specific site
G)Implementing or maintaining a permaculture design
H)Teaching, admonishing, or being a permie guru

Within each of these notional archetypes will be various "issues" with somewhat common experiences or "scenarios".

So I guess I'm curious where in the permie system you'd like to focus...on a specific permie? a group or archetype of permies? All permies? Permaculture education? Permaculture implementation?

George Yacus wrote:Okay, so I breezed through the posted PDF, and noticed its focus is on the UX design process, rather than mobile app design.

So I think I'm having trouble understanding the desired end state for the project in regards to educational scope or purpose.

It wouldn't be difficult for us to list notional permaculture people archetypes -- to be developed into personas, or found on the forum already.

People on the permies forums are generally:
A)Looking for land access
B)Looking for experience opportunities (or PDCs)
C)Looking for specific technical ideas for solving specific problems
D)Learning casually, for fun, or to gain skills
E)Building community or sharing an experience or project
F)Going through the permaculture design process in general for a specific site
G)Implementing or maintaining a permaculture design
H)Teaching, admonishing, or being a permie guru

Within each of these notional archetypes will be various "issues" with somewhat common experiences or "scenarios".

So I guess I'm curious where in the permie system you'd like to focus...on a specific permie? a group or archetype of permies? All permies? Permaculture education? Permaculture implementation?

1.The test book is a guide but i must  get the consent of every persona used for GDPR and also to guide against any legal issues that may come up hence the need to each person's permission.
2. The UX design is a test book meant to create an understanding of the student's knowledge on this topic. Creating a system or amending a current system to fix an existing issue.
3. The article may be uploaded on the school library. It all depends on how good it is.
4. while trying to get  personas. I also must investigate if this is a homogeneous or heterogeneous group . It can be 2 or 3 personas
5. The trust is that i initially found a group of people with good scenarios as well but none of them responded to me. Not sure how active  they. Also, not everyone is comfortable with giving out details freely.
6. I really was not supposed to post the question or the picture i sent because it is meant to be like a questionnaire  while i get responses from all. Once i reference this post on a forum. I probably may need to hide some posts so as not to loose marks with all this conversation. I am really not sure if it will count against me.

I hope i answered all questions