Community Gardening: Research Methods

In our human-centered design class, my design research group and I came up with a question which would help focus our investigation into finding a way to decrease food insecurity in Fayetteville, Arkansas: How might we modify the current community garden projects in Fayetteville so more city residents could/would join?

We first conducted three interviews via Zoom. We took extensive notes and documented the meetings. We were very grateful for how eager they were to share their experiences with community gardening. These interviews gave our group a solid beginning into our investigation. However, gaining a deeper understanding of the problems at hand was blatantly apparent to us, so it was necessary for our team to employ a variety of other research methods as well. We ended up choosing 5 unique methods to pursue:

Questionnaire: 

Our team authored a questionnaire which was shared through our personal instagram stories and community facebook pages. This short survey included 20 questions, both multiple choice and open ended. The responses we received gave our group insight into the community’s experiences regarding grocery shopping, food insecurity and gardening. 

Our findings were very eye-opening. Most individuals who took the survey buy their groceries from large corporations such as Walmart, and they purchase produce almost every time they shop. The data also showed that 77% of survey takers have heard of the term food insecurity, but a surprising 59.1% have not heard of the phrase food deserts. Participants’ definitions of these terms were not all correct but the sentiment of each person’s definition was similar. In regards to gardening, 95% of survey takers knew what a community garden was while a lofty 63.6%  were unaware that Fayetteville offers such programs. The survey also revealed that 14 out of the total 22 participants voted that they might join a community garden with further research on the topic. Over 40% of participants disclosed that they sometimes or often experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months, yet most participants did feel that they had access to quality food choices where they lived. More than half of the  individuals who took the survey have grown their own produce which was a surprising finding for our research team. 

AEIOU Observation (Activity, Environment, Interaction, Objects, Users): 

My research team and I went to Tri Cycle Farms, a community urban farm park, in Fayetteville to conduct an AEIOU observation of the farm. While the garden is temporarily closed to the public because of the ongoing pandemic, the director of the farm, Don Bennett gave our group a tour of the land. We documented our experience through photos as well as notes.

Activity – Don and his team are actively expanding and updating the farm to accommodate more year-round production as well as a greater variety of crops. Tri Cycle prides itself on giving one third of their food to food banks, one third to volunteers, while only the last third is sold to maintain the farm and provide living wages for its full-time staff. 

Environment – Tri Cycle Farms is a community farm park which is an inclusive space not only for food production but for community gathering and involvement as well. The farm is smack-dab in the middle of the city, making the space a uniquely situated food producer.

Interaction – Tri Cycle Farms runs almost solely on volunteer help. Don has worked closely with University of Arkansas students and other community members to educate citizens on the importance of fighting food insecurity and how innovation and hard work could help grow Tri Cycle. 

Objects – There were lots of spaces and objects dedicated to community gatherings. Such as a stage, large picnic tables and open areas. Some other objects that were used in the farm included hoses, sinks, and a greenhouse. 

Users– Only Don was there during our walkthrough, but he was so energetic and willing to share his knowledge of gardening and food insecurity that we definitely didn’t feel like we missed out on anything while we were there. Don is constantly involved with the community as both an educator and a leader and he encourages all of his volunteers and fellow community members to do the same. 

Observation: 

Our team also did an extensive walkthrough of the Fayetteville community gardens with the Parks Volunteer Coordinator, Kristina Jones. We documented this observation through photographs and notes. We asked Kristina many questions about the gardens including how they function and what the city program may look like in the future. She made it clear that the current size of the community gardens is exactly where it needs to be in terms of participants and waiting list size. In short this means that the amount of plots open to the public is sufficient for the number of residents who want to participate. The addition of a new community garden also seems unlikely due to current city budgets and the physical states of the current Fayetteville gardens (they both need renovations and updating). These conclusions have led us to re-examine our approach to the investigation. 

Graffiti Wall: 

As a more hands-on research method, our team chose to employ graffiti walls as a way to collect unscripted responses to our How Might We question. A group member and I constructed these boards using colorful poster boards, string, green sharpie markers, hand sanitizer, and Gorilla Tape. We placed one at the White River Nursery and the other at the Fayetteville community garden in Walker Park. Both posters were left at their locations between 3 and 4 days. This method was intended to elicit some interesting responses from individuals around these areas in particular because the act of “gardening” would be actively going on around them. However, only one board managed to get two responses. While this is a rather disappointing result to a research method, it led us to ask the questions: Why was our most fun and interactive research method the least successful? Does the average community member care or feel the need to interact with or address this issue? Has COVID had an effect on this research method in any way?

Photo Studies:

Photo studies are common in exploratory research for understanding the world of users, particularly when engaging in territory unfamiliar to the designer. For this method, our research team asked 6 participants for personal photos which followed a given image outline. However,  we also encouraged them to send in any other photos of their daily life that interested them. 

Once we collected all of the photo studies, we began to survey all of the images for commonalities that may speak to the community as a whole. Every participant clearly enjoyed outdoor spaces, but only a couple people seemed to bring some sort of gardening into their homes. All 6 people submitted at least one image of themselves with other individuals in a social setting. We also noted that the younger participants were more likely to be with friends and go out to eat, while older participants were more likely to cook at home and be with family. There were many instances of clearly used, but loved, objects in every study. Experiences such as being social, being outside, and enjoying the comforts of home were all common themes we found using this method of research.

Conclusion:

After implementing these 5 separate research methods over a two week period, our design team revealed a few very important conclusions. People are much less comfortable with participating in face to face community socialization (such as community gardening) with strangers. COVID has greatly increased the number of food insecure Fayetteville residents, but there has not been an equal increase in charity food banks or production. We have also realized that the city of Fayetteville if pretty maxed out on their garden projects. Community involvement is what drives these gardens and farms, not the other way around! We need to find a way to get the community interested first, then their involvement will spur growth in using gardening to combat local food insecurity. Because of this, our team has decided to revisit our How Might We question in order to mirror this new information.