User Research
We began conducting our background research through interviews and in-depth competitive analysis. To start the interview process, we identified our target users more broadly as anyone on the UW campus, including prospective UW students, tourists, event goers, as well as those who have little to no understanding about navigating the UW campus. We recruited participants that aligned with our vision and interviewed them on their personalities, pain points, goals, and needs.
Through the interview, we found common problems that UW visitors currently experience. Because the UW campus is so large, there are many different buildings that have confusing physical maps and signs that attempt to aid visitors. People who are lost on campus will either follow the physical maps/signs or ask someone for directions. Specifically, they were confused trying to find certain classrooms or understanding the signs indoors. This confusion led to late arrivals and frustrated visitors.
Following our interviews, we completed an in-depth competitive analysis that focused on the success and failures of several related navigational products. Through our research findings, we gained insight on our target users and the current related resources available to them. We used this information to design a better campus mapping solution possible.
Husky Guiders increase UW visitor’s satisfaction by navigating them around the UW campus with frictionless and efficient experiences. The product is a building and specific classroom locator that uses a mix of augmented reality and outdoor/indoor GPS technology. Our app gives the user different routes accommodating walking, car, bus, and accessibility by giving various route options with GPS. Our product can reduce confusion that they currently experience.
Competing Product
Indoor Positioning Systems (IndoorAtlas)
IndoorAtlas provides a unique cloud platform, indoor positioning systems (IPS). It locates people or objects inside a building using radio waves, magnetic fields, acoustic signals or other sensory information collected by a smartphone device or tablet. These systems are used to detect and track a position. Just think of it as GPS, but for indoors. The software-only IPS requires no large-scale purchase, installation or maintenance of hardware to pinpoint a person’s location and it delivers 1-2 meters’ accuracy. Modern buildings all have a unique magnetic landscape produced by the Earth’s magnetic field that interacts with steel and other materials found in structures of buildings. By utilizing the built-in magnetic sensor (the compass) as well as other sensing technologies within a smartphone, the software is able to use the magnetic field inside the building as a map to accurately pinpoint and track a person’s location indoors, producing a “blue dot” on a map. It shows the start point, the path a person’s taken, and their endpoint.
Figure 1: The image on the left shows an example of IPS navigation. The image on the right shows geomagnetic technology that is used on IPS.
One way in which the IPS fails is it only supports indoor navigations. It is possible to map an outdoor place when it is close to buildings or steel structures, but it becomes less accurate in open areas without enough steel structures. Potential users come from outside of the campus, so they need outdoor navigations as well. However, there are many open areas without enough steel structures on the campus. As a result, IPS would have difficulties to navigate users outside of buildings. Thus, users need to use multiple navigations besides IPS to go to destinations on the campus. Also, two-dimensional maps are used in IPS. One of the drawbacks of the two-dimensional map is that users need to figure out which direction they face.
Storyboard
Following storyboards are common scenarios that visitors experience on the UW campus.
Scenario 1: Navigate to a Specific Room
Scenario 2: Find the Nearest Parking Lot
Husky Guiders increase UW visitor’s satisfaction by navigating them around the UW campus with frictionless and efficient experiences. The product is a building and specific classroom locator that uses a mix of augmented reality and outdoor/indoor GPS technology. Our app gives the user different routes accommodating walking, car, bus, and accessibility by giving various route options with GPS. Our product can reduce confusion that they currently experience.
Style Guide
Our application is specialized for University of Washington campus. Based on the UW branding guideline, we used the same font style and color palette to maintain UW branding standards.
Color Scheme
Typography
High Fidelity Mock Up
We have built key feature screens to expand on from our annotated wireframes.
Splash Screen
To represent Husky, the mascot character of the UW, we used a paw print for the logo. The logo is also used as an address icon to locate a destination.
2D Navigation Views
We have built 2-dimensional map views for driving and walking navigations. Users can enter specific classroom numbers as well as a building name, which enables users to go to the destination in a frictionless manner. Driving routes are shown as solid lines, and walking routes are shown as dog paw prints.
3D Navigation Views
We also built 3-dimensional map views with augmented reality technology to make navigation more intuitive. The navigation accommodates along with a direction where the phone is facing. Users can switch 2D or 3D map view quickly by tapping the 2D/AR button.
