How do you improve subjective human well-being?

It's difficult to improve what you can't measure, and difficult to measure something that everyone defines differently.  Join The H(app)athon Project, IDcubed, and the City of Somerville as we tackle both challenges in a pilot to quantify, visualize, and improve subjective citizen well-being in Somerville.  We're leveraging mobile phone sensor data and IDcubed's Open Mustard Seed platform to create open source applications that empower citizens to:

• Measure, understand, and act to improve their communities' well-being
• Optionally share their data with their communities and city governments for greater impact
• Fully control when, how, and with whom their data and identity are shared

Key takeaways from this hackathon:

• Developing initial mockups, storyboards, visualizations, user testing plans, and other artifacts together with psychologists, UX designers, users, data scientists, and developers
• Designing visualizations for mobile and desktop based on data from a few hundred initial surveys
• Working on a non-profit project that will actively continue benefitting cities' residents for years to come
• Helping the City of Somerville measure, understand, and improve citizens' well-being

This hackathon is the second in the Hacking Common Wealth Happiness series. At following hackathons, we'll review the mockups and work together to create the app in Django and JavaScript/CSS/HTML5, enable sensor data gathering through native Android and iPhone applications, and visualize the data for city and citizen insights. Finally we'll produce machine-learning algorithms that correlate survey responses, well-being research, and sensor data to determine real-time community well-being metrics that are instantly available to participating citizens. Each monthly hackathon will build on prior efforts, and we'll continue learning and coding between hackathons. A continued reference of all code and design artifacts in our github repository.

Note: We do need some help with choosing the UX design tools to ensure a good group experience.  Help us decide in our design tool choice issue.

Agenda:

Saturday 8/17

10:00 Intro & spec review
10:30 Design Strategy Planning
11:30 Design
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Design
6:00 Relax, eat, and celebrate a good day together

Sunday 8/18

10:00 Design
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Design
6:00 Dinner & Results Walkthrough
7:00 Celebrate!

Directions:

ID3 (idcubed) map
210 South St., #5-1
Boston, MA 02111

By Car: Though there is parking below the building, it is around $40/hr.  We recommend parking near one of the other red line stops and taking the T to South Station.  One option, MIT's Hayward Lot, is free without a permit during all the Hackathon's hours.

Train (T): Take the red line to South Station.  Walk South on Atlantic Ave to Kneeland St. Turn right (West) and walk one block to South Street.  Turn right, and it's your first door on the right. (map)

Getting in the Building:

Dial 501# on the keypad outside.  Take the elevator to the 5th floor.  Look for the door marked 5-1 (It will also have an ID3 sign).

FAQ:

What should I bring?

Your laptop and yourself.

Is there data to hack on?

Only a little to design the data-collection app.  We'll first test it with city staff and then roll it out to citizens.  We should have "big" data Q1 of 2014.

Do I have to attend Saturday and Sunday?

Nope!  You're welcome to attend any day individually, or even part of a day!

Can I code on OMS at this hackathon?

Yes.  Though this hackathon is design-focused and OMS is in private alpha, you're welcome to come and hack on OMS with devs who can help answer questions about it.

More about Happathon?

Sure! We're creating more human-centric metrics of country/city "success" than economic measures like GDP (where oil spills indicate a positive increase).  Here's one press release from Somerville, and a higher level look from the Huffington Post.  Ask if you'd like more. We have lots!