Who Participates in Digital Action? Six Vignettes for Designers of Digital Action Events

Six "vignettes" or personas of imaginary individuals who might wish to attend a Digital Action event, to be used as a design aid for event planners. Digital Action means such activities as citizen science, makeathons or hackathons, which encompass public participation in activities that may be run in collaboration with Higher Education Institutions. This document reflects on the impact of the switch to digital communications that took place as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, explains Digital Action and the HEIDI Project, and reports on HEIDI Project research on different stakeholders' experiences of Digital Action. This research took the form of roundtables with Higher Education staff and members of voluntary or community groups. Each "persona" contains some fictional details to preserve the anonymity of the roundtable participants, but are designed to reflect their experiences, interests, goals and frustrations. It is the aim that these "personas" should indicate to event planners what sort of training their events might involve, and what sort of subjects a Digital Action event might cover (e.g. assisting a particular demographic, solving a social or environmental problem or creating some new product).