Deepwood: A Sensory Tree Experience.

The Design to Deliver programme was collaboratively created by Digital Catapult, Connected Places Catapult, and Satellite Applications Catapult; three connected organisations that seek to accelerate innovation within their respective fields.

Its goal? To unite UK-based SMEs with design consultancies and local community partners to create innovative, user-centred solutions to some of the UK’s biggest challenges.

We worked specifically with Digital Catapult, and their challenge was: Informed choices for nature-positive actions - How can you develop a solution leveraging existing data, to help citizens be better informed to make nature-conscious decisions?

Hive IT was chosen to partner with Bristol-based SME Mechanimal, a creative SME, on the development of an operational prototype of their immersive nature experience. Their project was called ‘Deepwood’. Our work was to guide Mechanimal through a human-centred design process to develop Deepwood from a concept to a user-tested digital and physical experience that encourages nature-positive behaviour.

We initially met with Digital Catapult in late 2024 to introduce ourselves and gain deeper insight into the format of the challenge. Here, we got to know the team that we would be working with on this project, and how we would all contribute to the project’s success. On the team were:

• Digital Catapult - a London-based deep technology innovation organisation that wants to utilise the unique ideas and talents of Small / Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to tackle some of the UK's biggest challenges. Their role was to give us guidance and assistance, connect us with experts in design and technology, and monitor everyone's progress throughout the process.
• Hive IT (Design Consultancy) - our role was to provide design expertise and to help two Small / Medium Enterprises (SME), providing user research, design approach, user testing and digital implementation.

Knowle West Media Centre (Location Partner) - KWMC is an arts and technology centre and charity located in Knowle West, Bristol. It uses the arts and technology to help support people in making positive changes in their lives and communities. They provided local user group contacts and supported research activity.

Shortly after meeting everyone, we got the opportunity to learn more about the SME’s that got shortlisted for the programme and ask questions / provide feedback that would help Digital Catapult in choosing the SME’s and allocating them to the appropriate design consultancies. The two SME’s that were chosen to work with us were:

• Mechanimal - A Bristol-based SME that creates live theatre shows and immersive experiences that explore life on a changing planet, and finds new ways of touring shows inspired by how nature moves.

• Nature Nurture - a creative social enterprise rooted in nature and wellbeing, whose mission is to enhance the mental and physical wellbeing of our diverse communities by engaging and connecting them with the parks, woodlands and waterways on their doorstep.

This case study is about the work we did with Mechanimal and their project, Deepwood.

Deepwood is a nature-based immersive experience powered by real-time tree data. Biosensors are attached to a tree to record live data (such as soil moisture and bark conductivity), which is then turned into a live audio experience that changes as the data changes. It’s designed to slow people down, invite reflection and to strengthen our relationship with the ecosystems around us. Our job was to take Deepwood from its current phase through the design thinking process to end up with a working prototype that was tailored to user needs.

We officially kicked off the project by heading down to London to meet with Digital Catapult, Knowle West Media Centre, and Mechanimal for a kick-off day, where we heard more about the program structure, listened to some inspirational talks, and learned about the different design consultancies, location partners, and SMEs on the programme.

We then broke out into our teams for a workshop. This allowed us to discuss programme structure, objectives, expectations and a formal introduction to all teams was agreed. This session was very beneficial to the project as it helped us:

• Set roles and responsibilities on the project
• Help us understand and clarify Mechanimal’s vision for ‘Deepwood’
• Helped us to understand and define key risks and assumptions
• Co-create a three-month engagement delivery roadmap for the next three sprints.

Collaborating with Mechanimal on their project ‘Deepwood’, we had to discover who ‘Deepwood’ was for and who their target audience was to help them clarify a more focused user-centred design process.

To do this, we facilitated a series of impact mapping workshops and behavioural archetype exercises. By doing these important exercises, we were able to identify potential stakeholder groups, their motivations, and prioritise the most relevant user types for this particular project.

From these exercises, we had two lead archetypes, which we named:

• The Local Curious: Local residents who are open to trying new art and tech within their local community.
• The Mindful Healer: Individuals seeking therapeutic, nature-based experiences.

These exercises were an important process in helping Mechanimal understand its target users. Archetypes are about behaviours, the why behind people’s decisions. They give us a zoomed-out view of shared motivations and patterns across a community.

With the support of KWMC, we reached out directly to Bristol residents and community members to conduct interviews and gather insights for developing the Deepwood prototype. Our focus was to:

• Learn about the barriers to engaging with nature
• Find out the appeal of immersive, nature-based technology
• Identify any community spaces of interest for the development of the prototype

We created tailored questions focused on our two priority user groups to understand how they currently interact with nature, the barriers they face and their desires for an audio experience related to nature.

One of the key insights we discovered was the strong connection that people felt towards Springfield Allotments, where a community group has formed. Given the dedicated group using the allotments and the safety of the enclosed space, we decided it would be the perfect place to set up the prototype.

At the same time, we moved into the user testing part of the project by organising two face-to-face user engagement sessions. This was done using a basic version of Deepwood, which included just one audio track to get initial feedback from the community participants. In the first session, we were able to experiment with the use of narrative prompts during the user testing. For example, “Point out one unexpected thing that you see on the tree”, and “Move your body into the shape of the tree”. We were able to observe participants' reactions to these prompts to help refine the development of the project.

Session two of the user testing moved towards a mid-level prototype experience, which drew from real-time sensor data from trees. The audio component of Deepwood had significantly improved since the first user session. This allowed users to listen to audio from various biosensors (controlled by Deepwood’s sound designer) around a Hawthorn tree at the Springfield Allotments, whilst Tom Bailey, from Mechanimal, described their experience.

From these user engagement sessions, we were able to take notes on participants' reactions to the sounds and held feedback sessions to provide Mechanimal with insights to further refine the project.

Mechanimal then conducted two additional rounds of testing to continue enhancing the experience of the prototype.

We wanted Deepwood to be accessible for everyone, and to reach and impact as many people as it could, influencing them to have a better impact on nature, but we did not want to limit that impact to the few people lucky enough to try the in person experience, so we decided to explore the possibility of a Deepwood website.

Mechanimal wanted the website to be enticing to investors by describing the project and how they can get involved, while also offering an online experience in the form of a 3D soundscape based around a virtual 3D tree, which we created in Three.js.

Over three weeks, we rapidly spun up a Deepwood website. Mechanimal provided us with designs, and we created the front end using React, giving us the flexibility to easily add a 3D image and soundscape to the website, which we hooked up to Mechanimal’s existing WordPress instance via the WordPress API. We did this so that Mechanimal could update the content of the Deepwood website using the same WordPress interface they were used to.

Despite the short timescales, the resulting website met the requirements and gave Mechanimal a solid way to entice both investors and regular users to engage with Deepwood.

You can see the current Deepwood website here: https://deepwood.mechanimal.co.uk/

As the project came to an end, we attended a showcase at Knowle West Media Centre to share all of the work we had done and see what the other SME’s and their teams had been getting up to over the last three months. We also got the chance to show off the final version of Deepwood (so far), with fully spatialised audio, which was completed by Mechanimal. Deepwood was a hit, and so many people signed up to use it that Mechanimal needed to offer more sessions than planned. It got overwhelmingly positive feedback from everyone who used it, with users saying that they didn’t want to leave the experience.

We really enjoyed getting the opportunity to work on this project, and we valued the challenge of trying to employ the full design thinking process in such a short amount of time, which has shaped how we will go about the design thinking process in future projects.

It was a pleasure to work with Digital Catapult, Knowle West Media Centre, and Mechanimal on this project, and we’re incredibly grateful for their involvement and support. It was also fantastic to engage with so many real users throughout Knowle West, whose contributions and comments were essential to the delivery of this project.

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