CSC8606 – CW3 - Design Brief
Student ID - 220504658
Miro Board Link - Kindly click here!
Introduction
For this assignment we were given a brief from Newcastle City Council stating the following:
“We want Newcastle city centre to appear innovative, exciting, and digitally advanced as part of our smart city agenda. We would like you to design and propose some Interactive Street Furniture that will enhance the visiting experience for city visitors.”
For this assignment, we were put into teams of three. Each member of the group had a different background and skill set, which proved to be very advantageous throughout various stages of the task.
Initial Planning
To begin brainstorming ideas for potential interactive Street Furniture, the team searched Google for examples of street furniture and discussed how this furniture could be improved upon and how an interactive element could be incorporated. In this planning stage, a very rough guide was drawn up and rough estimates of when we should aim to complete different tasks were decided. It was also decided early on that to present any information that was created that a Miro Board would be used, as Miro had all the tools the team would need for the task and would also allow everyone to monitor changes made.
Ideas For Design
After having a lengthy conversation about each group member's different thoughts, two initial ideas were settled upon. The first idea is an interactive board game that would allow users to socialise with one another whilst utilising this furniture. The other idea was to improve upon bus stops, which from one team member's experience, could hugely benefit from a more interactive display. This proposed idea to improve bus stops was to have an interactive display that would allow users to see more clearly how long their bus would take along with a multitude of other features built into the display.
This part of the assignment went very well, with everyone on the team becoming acquainted with one another and feeling comfortable bouncing ideas around with each other.
Field Research
With everyone being happy and settled on these ideas they decided that the best approach to continue with would be to carry out some observations and interviews with members of the public. We decided the street to conduct this research on would be Blacket Street, by Eldon Square. This decision was due to the location being convenient for all group members and also because the street also has a blend of both bus stops and benches.
A list of interview questions was devised with the goal for these questions to keep them as detailed as possible, whilst not taking too long for any participants to answer as we appreciated the fact that they may be in a rush or not wish to be disturbed. The team found it very difficult initially to find people who were both keen and able to carry out these short interviews as some members of the public were in a rush or were not interested in taking part in the interview. Thankfully several participants were found. These participants came from a diverse range of ages, and locations.
The answers that were given varied a lot in some areas but were also similar in many other regards. These interview questions were primarily qualitative as we believed it to be more useful to get more emotive answers from participants due to the subjective nature of the topic.
The observation also proved to be very insightful in developing the final concept by allowing the team to witness the public interacting with the street furniture in a natural environment and allowing us to understand what works well and what does not work so well. Various elements were picked up over time such as how easy it is for a single bus timetable to be blocked, which led to various redesigns of the final concept.
In addition to the interviews and observations, a Google Form questionnaire was designed to get a wider range of opinions regarding our concept and the issues that people may face with street furniture. For this the link to the Google Form was sent to people we all knew personally.
The research stage of this assignment proved to be somewhat more challenging than the group had expected as interacting with the public and getting their attention whilst conducting the interviews proved to be a task in and of itself. Thankfully anyone who was approached was very respectful, and those who did stop and take the time to be interviewed gave very helpful answers relating to the questions that had been asked. Regrettably, more in-depth interviews were not conducted as the group did not want to take up too much of people's time. However, as consideration for future assignments and real-world research, scheduled interviews would be considered to get even more insightful answers.
Concerning the Google Form, one major drawback of this approach was only sending this link to people we knew. Whilst the simplicity of this approach was very useful for gaining data quickly, the answers tend not to seem to vary greatly and potentially to be biased due to the personal connections each of us had with the participants.
Something very unexpected that was gained from the Google Form however was how participants reacted to viewing adverts at the bus signs. Initially, the team was contemptuous of removing adverts altogether but decided we should at least get some idea of how users react to adverts. Surprisingly 100% of users replied saying that they viewed adverts at bus stops frequently, which slightly changed the team's trajectory to still include adverts on the new interactive bus timetables, so as not to take this away from users.
Research Analysis
From the research conducted there was a great range of data that had been gained by the interviewees and through observations of the chosen furniture. We thoroughly looked through the answers and notes we had gathered from the research and tried to group each of the different responses in an attempt to find patterns within this data.
The data were initially grouped into two categories: observed problems and interviewee problems. From these two categories, we then decided which problems were similar and put these problems together on a separate frame. Once the team was happy with the final result of where these problems had been grouped, we tried to come up with fitting titles for separate categories. These titles were: Bus Stop Schedule Accessibility; Bench limitations; Bus Stop Information; Bus Stop Limitations; and Limitations That Affect Children and Parents.
This method of affinity diagrams proved to be very useful for progressing with the assignment as it gave a very clear and quick visual indicator of what the problems facing street furniture are, and would help with further stages of the assignment.
However, despite being incredibly handy and easy to look at, affinity mapping did give several disadvantages. As previously mentioned this was a quick visual indicator, which also had the drawback of meaning that there was only a brief description of the problems identified. This meant that on several occasions different members of the group misinterpreted what some of these sticky notes were implying, which led to time being spent to ensure that everyone was on the same page.
Problem Scenario
With an understanding of the problems affecting users through the research, a potential problem scenario was created. This involved a variety of aspects regarding how a user would interact with the system and all the possible issues they may run into based on the interviewees’ answers and observations. This was annotated with a variety of pictures to help make the diagram more visually appealing.
Personas and Scenarios
Three separate personas with unique characteristics and goals were created. The aim of this was to help gain a stronger understanding of what the user’s needs and behaviours could be, and how our design could benefit them. The personas were created using a website called UXPressia, which helped to give them a more visually appealing design, as opposed to simply creating them using Miro.
These personas were fitted with basic demographics such as their age and occupations, their goals, a quote, and how their needs can be served through features of the concept.
These three personas aimed to encapsulate the main problems we were trying to alleviate with the interactive street furniture. For example one of the personas, Jane Shaw, was a single mother of a toddler, that encouraged us to design street furniture that would keep the children engaged.
Creating the personas was a very beneficial process as it allowed for further ideas and features to be developed for the final concept and helped to give the group somewhat of a target to set their sights on for the final stages of the task.
In hindsight, however, these personas seemed to focus a lot on how they would interact with our design and do not give them a great deal of personality, which to an extent does not help to humanise those who we are designing for.
After the concept design had been finalised, scenarios showing how each of the personas would interact with the design to meet their goals were created. These scenarios helped in fully analysing the final concept and how it could fix the frustrations of the user.
Much like the problem scenario, these scenarios demonstrating the concept were annotated with a variety of pictures to help give a more captivating and easier-to-understand look to the scenario.
Concept Design
Problem Statement
How can the experience of visitors coming to Newcastle be improved?
Problem Solution
Digital Information Board
The experience of the visitors coming to Newcastle can be enhanced by educating the user with the required information that they are actively looking out for. After conducting several interviews and research analysis we as a group thought of the following design concept -
Bus Timetable Display
By replacing the paper-based bus schedule with the digital bus timetable display it helps in improving the experience of the visitors by making them aware of which bus would arrive next.
Low fidelity wireframe also includes stops that the bus would take, thus making the experience easier for the visitor.
Attractions
Including the option of attractions in the menu of the proposed digital board, it helps the visitor interact with the board to get an idea of all the ongoing fun activities and interesting sightseeing in and around Newcastle city.
City Map
After detailed analysis, we found out that visitors are quite interested in exploring the city, and hence including a city map in the digital board was essential.
Weather Forecast
Since we are all aware of the unpredictable weather in the UK it's always best to keep the visitors informed about the weather forecast.
Tables with Interactive board games and a charging port facility
Tables with Interactive board games and a charging port facility
Tactile Surface Interactive Game - Tic Tac Toe
Proposed Tactile Surface Interactive Game - Tic Tac Toe
Concept Design Outcome
Conclusion
This assignment proved a very fascinating task as it allowed for all the techniques each team member had learnt in the Introduction to HCI course to be put to good use. These skills were able to be expanded upon through the team having discussions throughout each decision that was to be made.
Despite having different areas of expertise each member of the team contributed a great deal to the outcome of the assignment. The team worked very well together and made sure that everyone understood what the current idea for the concept we were working towards was going to be.
What helped to make this particularly interesting was seeing the result consistently undergo additional features being added or removed based on any research that had been gathered and through the development of the personas.
Whilst there were some areas that each member agreed they would do differently, if there was more time and greater scope, such as potentially adding more features to the final concept and doing deeper research analysis. However, overall everyone was happy and proud of the result.
Miro Board Link - Kindly click here!
Introduction
For this assignment we were given a brief from Newcastle City Council stating the following:
“We want Newcastle city centre to appear innovative, exciting, and digitally advanced as part of our smart city agenda. We would like you to design and propose some Interactive Street Furniture that will enhance the visiting experience for city visitors.”
For this assignment, we were put into teams of three. Each member of the group had a different background and skill set, which proved to be very advantageous throughout various stages of the task.
Initial Planning
To begin brainstorming ideas for potential interactive Street Furniture, the team searched Google for examples of street furniture and discussed how this furniture could be improved upon and how an interactive element could be incorporated. In this planning stage, a very rough guide was drawn up and rough estimates of when we should aim to complete different tasks were decided. It was also decided early on that to present any information that was created that a Miro Board would be used, as Miro had all the tools the team would need for the task and would also allow everyone to monitor changes made.
Ideas For Design
After having a lengthy conversation about each group member's different thoughts, two initial ideas were settled upon. The first idea is an interactive board game that would allow users to socialise with one another whilst utilising this furniture. The other idea was to improve upon bus stops, which from one team member's experience, could hugely benefit from a more interactive display. This proposed idea to improve bus stops was to have an interactive display that would allow users to see more clearly how long their bus would take along with a multitude of other features built into the display.
This part of the assignment went very well, with everyone on the team becoming acquainted with one another and feeling comfortable bouncing ideas around with each other.
Field Research
With everyone being happy and settled on these ideas they decided that the best approach to continue with would be to carry out some observations and interviews with members of the public. We decided the street to conduct this research on would be Blacket Street, by Eldon Square. This decision was due to the location being convenient for all group members and also because the street also has a blend of both bus stops and benches.
 |
A list of interview questions was devised with the goal for these questions to keep them as detailed as possible, whilst not taking too long for any participants to answer as we appreciated the fact that they may be in a rush or not wish to be disturbed. The team found it very difficult initially to find people who were both keen and able to carry out these short interviews as some members of the public were in a rush or were not interested in taking part in the interview. Thankfully several participants were found. These participants came from a diverse range of ages, and locations.
The answers that were given varied a lot in some areas but were also similar in many other regards. These interview questions were primarily qualitative as we believed it to be more useful to get more emotive answers from participants due to the subjective nature of the topic.
The observation also proved to be very insightful in developing the final concept by allowing the team to witness the public interacting with the street furniture in a natural environment and allowing us to understand what works well and what does not work so well. Various elements were picked up over time such as how easy it is for a single bus timetable to be blocked, which led to various redesigns of the final concept.
In addition to the interviews and observations, a Google Form questionnaire was designed to get a wider range of opinions regarding our concept and the issues that people may face with street furniture. For this the link to the Google Form was sent to people we all knew personally.
The research stage of this assignment proved to be somewhat more challenging than the group had expected as interacting with the public and getting their attention whilst conducting the interviews proved to be a task in and of itself. Thankfully anyone who was approached was very respectful, and those who did stop and take the time to be interviewed gave very helpful answers relating to the questions that had been asked. Regrettably, more in-depth interviews were not conducted as the group did not want to take up too much of people's time. However, as consideration for future assignments and real-world research, scheduled interviews would be considered to get even more insightful answers.
Concerning the Google Form, one major drawback of this approach was only sending this link to people we knew. Whilst the simplicity of this approach was very useful for gaining data quickly, the answers tend not to seem to vary greatly and potentially to be biased due to the personal connections each of us had with the participants.
Something very unexpected that was gained from the Google Form however was how participants reacted to viewing adverts at the bus signs. Initially, the team was contemptuous of removing adverts altogether but decided we should at least get some idea of how users react to adverts. Surprisingly 100% of users replied saying that they viewed adverts at bus stops frequently, which slightly changed the team's trajectory to still include adverts on the new interactive bus timetables, so as not to take this away from users.
Research Analysis
From the research conducted there was a great range of data that had been gained by the interviewees and through observations of the chosen furniture. We thoroughly looked through the answers and notes we had gathered from the research and tried to group each of the different responses in an attempt to find patterns within this data.
The data were initially grouped into two categories: observed problems and interviewee problems. From these two categories, we then decided which problems were similar and put these problems together on a separate frame. Once the team was happy with the final result of where these problems had been grouped, we tried to come up with fitting titles for separate categories. These titles were: Bus Stop Schedule Accessibility; Bench limitations; Bus Stop Information; Bus Stop Limitations; and Limitations That Affect Children and Parents.
This method of affinity diagrams proved to be very useful for progressing with the assignment as it gave a very clear and quick visual indicator of what the problems facing street furniture are, and would help with further stages of the assignment.
However, despite being incredibly handy and easy to look at, affinity mapping did give several disadvantages. As previously mentioned this was a quick visual indicator, which also had the drawback of meaning that there was only a brief description of the problems identified. This meant that on several occasions different members of the group misinterpreted what some of these sticky notes were implying, which led to time being spent to ensure that everyone was on the same page.
Problem Scenario
With an understanding of the problems affecting users through the research, a potential problem scenario was created. This involved a variety of aspects regarding how a user would interact with the system and all the possible issues they may run into based on the interviewees’ answers and observations. This was annotated with a variety of pictures to help make the diagram more visually appealing.
Personas and Scenarios
Three separate personas with unique characteristics and goals were created. The aim of this was to help gain a stronger understanding of what the user’s needs and behaviours could be, and how our design could benefit them. The personas were created using a website called UXPressia, which helped to give them a more visually appealing design, as opposed to simply creating them using Miro.
These personas were fitted with basic demographics such as their age and occupations, their goals, a quote, and how their needs can be served through features of the concept.
 |
These three personas aimed to encapsulate the main problems we were trying to alleviate with the interactive street furniture. For example one of the personas, Jane Shaw, was a single mother of a toddler, that encouraged us to design street furniture that would keep the children engaged.
Creating the personas was a very beneficial process as it allowed for further ideas and features to be developed for the final concept and helped to give the group somewhat of a target to set their sights on for the final stages of the task.
In hindsight, however, these personas seemed to focus a lot on how they would interact with our design and do not give them a great deal of personality, which to an extent does not help to humanise those who we are designing for.
After the concept design had been finalised, scenarios showing how each of the personas would interact with the design to meet their goals were created. These scenarios helped in fully analysing the final concept and how it could fix the frustrations of the user.
Much like the problem scenario, these scenarios demonstrating the concept were annotated with a variety of pictures to help give a more captivating and easier-to-understand look to the scenario.
Concept Design
Problem Statement
How can the experience of visitors coming to Newcastle be improved?
Problem Solution
- The wireframe and prototype of the concept were done using Figma software
- By redesigning the Bus stop shelter panel to a digital information board.
- By introducing tables with Interactive board games and a charging port facility
- Tactile Surface Interactive Game - Tic Tac Toe
Digital Information Board
The experience of the visitors coming to Newcastle can be enhanced by educating the user with the required information that they are actively looking out for. After conducting several interviews and research analysis we as a group thought of the following design concept -
Bus Timetable Display
By replacing the paper-based bus schedule with the digital bus timetable display it helps in improving the experience of the visitors by making them aware of which bus would arrive next.
Low fidelity wireframe also includes stops that the bus would take, thus making the experience easier for the visitor.
Attractions
Including the option of attractions in the menu of the proposed digital board, it helps the visitor interact with the board to get an idea of all the ongoing fun activities and interesting sightseeing in and around Newcastle city.
City Map
After detailed analysis, we found out that visitors are quite interested in exploring the city, and hence including a city map in the digital board was essential.
Weather Forecast
Since we are all aware of the unpredictable weather in the UK it's always best to keep the visitors informed about the weather forecast.
Tables with Interactive board games and a charging port facility
Tables with Interactive board games and a charging port facility
- Tables with interactive board games are introduced to keep the visitors engaged while waiting for the bus, or with their friends on the street.
- These tables with interactive board games like scramble and tic tac toe can be used by all age groups, as the games are very easy to play.
Tactile Surface Interactive Game - Tic Tac Toe
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Proposed Tactile Surface Interactive Game - Tic Tac Toe
- To make street furniture universally accessible to all visitors interactive games with tactile surfaces are proposed in the design.
Concept Design Outcome
With the proposed concept design the following outcomes were achieved -
Additionally, due to time restrictions, there were a few limitations and scope of improvement as follows -
- The visiting experience was improved by providing informative yet engaging street furniture like the digital information board.
- To make the digital board accessible to people who are visually impaired we proposed the feature of an ‘immersive reader’ so that information could easily be consumed by all.
- By including the emergency dial-in contact in the control panel of the digital information board with the ability to speak directly to someone in the control room, the safety and security of the visitors were guaranteed.
- By proposing the idea of placing a scanner near the bus stop other visitors can conveniently scan and can access the link on their devices. Thus saving their time while other visitors are interacting with the digital board panels.
- By proposing an interactive board game in the street furniture we made sure that visitors of all generations could easily engage themselves with fun activities around.
- Including the tactile surfaced buttons in the control panel of the digital board and proposing the tactile surfaced easy-to-play games, we were able to achieve universally accessible street furniture for all visitors interacting with it.
- The proposed street furniture designs can be easily placed across various streets of Newcastle.
Additionally, due to time restrictions, there were a few limitations and scope of improvement as follows -
- The digital information board can be improved by adding the feature to search as per the desired destination.
- The interactive board games and tactile surface board games need to be placed strategically on streets that have wide pathways so that walking space is not restricted.
Conclusion
This assignment proved a very fascinating task as it allowed for all the techniques each team member had learnt in the Introduction to HCI course to be put to good use. These skills were able to be expanded upon through the team having discussions throughout each decision that was to be made.
Despite having different areas of expertise each member of the team contributed a great deal to the outcome of the assignment. The team worked very well together and made sure that everyone understood what the current idea for the concept we were working towards was going to be.
What helped to make this particularly interesting was seeing the result consistently undergo additional features being added or removed based on any research that had been gathered and through the development of the personas.
Whilst there were some areas that each member agreed they would do differently, if there was more time and greater scope, such as potentially adding more features to the final concept and doing deeper research analysis. However, overall everyone was happy and proud of the result.
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