Cozette Kosary, M.A., B.E.D.
UX Researcher and Strategist
route me
Redefining Campus Wayfinding.
Design Problem: A Group of graduate students from different disciplines were asked to define and improve an aspect of the University of Kansas’s wayfinding by using user participation in both the research and design phases of the project.Originally the team sought out to improve campus wayfinding in terms of finding Visitors' Parking on campus however the true problem with wayfinding emerged in finding a specific location within the buildings on campus. Therefore, the team shifted the projects focus from finding Visitors' Parking to finding Room 340 in The Art and Design Building.
Design Team: Ren Harn, Brook Graham, Rachel Magario, YuPing Hsu, Khalid Moukali, Michele Rook, Maria Jose Miselem, and Cozette Kosary
My Role: UX Researcher and UX Designer.
Observe – Evaluate: To learn about users, the team sought out students to complete a Think Aloud Protocol Walkthrough Analysis. To conduct these analyses, users were told to speak out loud to a camera and document themselves finding Room 340. Analysis were videoed and analyzed for patterns in behavior, frustrations, and potential considerations for the application’s design. A floor plan of the building interior was also mocked up with the routes users took.
To further study the building interiors, the team used Kevin Lynch’s Model: Concept of Legibility as a lens to describe the ease with which people can understand the layout of a place. By defining paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks, problem areas in the building’s plan started to emerge. This research confirmed problems with the building's wayfinding and offered proof that an interior navigation application was a viable solution.
Make – Iterate: To reflect on users’ wants and needs for the application, the design team needed to first establish proper terminology.
To establish terminology and see how current students define space, the team asked them to draw Conceptual Models of the Art and Design Building. This activity led to the discovery that 80% of current students with a class in Room 340 could not identify the location. This insight proved that current students could also benefit from the application.
To see how current students would use the application, they were asked to conduct Gesture Interviews. The team recorded current students locating Room 340 on a map and then handed them a piece of paper representing the interior navigation application. Students then needed to demonstrate how it would work by finding Room 340.
Once gesture interviews were complete and all prior videos were analyzed, Personas were developed to reflect the two target users: Novice Users and Expert Users.
Reflect – Test | Brainstorm: To begin the creation of a new experience and the development of an interior navigation application, the design team deployed various fidelities of prototypes and tested them on users looking for Room 340.
By performing situated action prototyping the design team was able to take the concept of an interior navigation application to physical form. This process included testing Paper Prototypes, iPad PDF Prototypes and Flash Prototypes on users to discover an application that not only offers students step by step directions to Room 340 but also incorporates pictorial references and gestural controls.
Once the application was prototyped, users conducted brand surveys and interviews to establish a name and logo for the application. Users were surveyed via SurveyMonkey to see what they would call an interior navigation application. Some names include: route me, arrive, directo, scout, and beeline. The design team then took these names and generated logos and interviewed users to see which name they preferred best. Majority of the users interviewed preferred the name route me, a compass arrow, and the color green suited the application best.
Deliverables: route me Mobile Application Prototypes: Paper Prototype, PDF Prototype, Flash Prototype.