• User Experience Design

    Don't make me think - Steve Krug

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    Location guide, WindsurfingNZ ...

  • Science & technology

    Projects past, present & future.

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In: Sport and Recreation

I was recently involved in an online focus group answering questions about the guidelines for the proposed Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission, created by the The Integrity Sport and Recreation Bill to strengthen and protect the integrity of New Zealand’s sport and recreation sector. It was a valuable exercise for me as I have long held views about the way sport and recreation are managed in New Zealand- brought about by my long involvement in windsurfing, including 9 years as President of Windsurfing NZ. To help give feedback I wrote down my thoughts on how the sport and recreation sector could be managed based onRead More →

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In: Sport and Recreation

I had the opportunity to contribute my story to this study –  Lifelong outdoor enthusiasts’ engagement with nature-based activities later in life. I owe so much to my outdoor activities and strongly believe the government should be making public recreation a higher priority than high performance sport for both physical and mental long term benefits. Covid-19 and lockdown highlighted this in so many ways. Sport ground to a halt. Organised team and group activities, gathering in facilities, spectating – all suffered, but in response everyone started walking, cycling and post level 4 we started exploring activities that didn’t require facilities, teams, organisations – just getRead More →

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In: Community Information, Resilient Radio, Uncategorized

I’m on our local community board, and we currently have a small noticeboard at the entrance to our library in the village. Typical of such notice boards it rarely gets updated and probably few people even know it exists. My response is to set up an electronic notice board in the library window which will cycle through a series of screens with useful information. Some of this will be standard fare such as who the board members are and how to contact us, other ways to access community information (monthly newspaper, Facebook page and website https://eastbourne.nz). The notice board is intended to be accessible to those locals whoRead More →

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In: Projects, Uncategorized

Resilient Radio is the product of my experience of what can happen when a community lacks clear, relevant and timely information to an emergency (in our case the Kaikoura earthquake). Resilient Radio is a solar/battery low power FM (LPFM) radio station (in a suitcase) which can be remotely controlled and updated through a variety of redundant channels. It can be set up and used for normal community broadcasts (schools, events etc.), but when an emergency arises it can be switched to begin broadcasting useful local information on how to respond to the type of emergency happening. As local information becomes available it can be addedRead More →

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In: Bruce Spedding

In the early 1990’s I wrote a guide to where to go windsurfing in New Zealand, and emailed it to anyone who asked, often via a newsgroup called rec.windsurfing. When the Internet arrived I made it available on a web page courtesy of (and hosted by) my employer the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Restructuring of government research (neoliberal economics) eventually led to me leaving my job and looking for a new career. The internet was becoming more public and popular, so I redeveloped my guide into a fully fledged website. I chose the domain ‘winzurf.co.nz’ because I didn’t want to pigeonhole myselfRead More →