Our Gameplan Approach
Too few people are regularly active. This confirms the shortcomings of how we support people attempting to get, and stay, involved. Enter the notion of Human-Centred Design (HCD) and our Gameplan . We wanted to engage more people in physical activity and wanted to use an approach that acknowledges the realities (positive and negative) of incorporating new behaviours into daily routines. This brought us to HCD tools and approaches which are leading practitioners (working with potential users) to develop compelling activities. Well-developed HCD helps create programmes that are engaging, exciting and effective. We found that when individuals’ pressing issues are met, they respond with engagement, exuberance and activity. Potential engagers are often frustrated that people who aim to help them do not always recognise and acknowledge participation barriers. Community engagement often rises when providers address their own blindspots. Often these blindspots lie in areas that seem unrelated to physical activity. However, they are the real reasons, beyond motivation and desire, why people are not able to engage with even the most well meaning provision. We have learned that attention is always a major issue, even when deliverers feel they have done everything they could to ensure widespread promotion of events. Local communication preferences and local influences vary by the target audience and, therefore, are best identified by working with local people. For example, in one Doncaster community we explored low engagement in local authority provision of summer physical activity programmes. We learned about the effects of prolonged scarcity and associated scarcity mindset . Scarcity affects individuals in different ways and encompasses many fundamental aspects, such as money, food, childcare, and transport. The resulting ‘present bias’ , led to an overwhelming focus on the now, at the expense of future planning. Like unwanted ivy in the garden, ‘ present bias ’ affects every day-to-day function in the way that it strangles everything around it. We learned that to get past the “it’s not for me” mindset, programmes for these groups needed to be ‘near, no cost and now’ and include elements that extended beyond sport itself. Importantly, these scarcity experiences weaken relationships and engagement with (external) groups. Using HCD helps to (re-) establish trust. This is the first step in any co-creation approach. This important insight places a priority on planning for the sequences that operate within every intervention. Programme experience changes users’ needs and expectations. For example, it took a while to work out what was needed to support the participation of some older adults in the Tour de Yorkshire: termed here as ‘see, wee and tea’ . This necessitates the need to think carefully about attendee needs so
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