Designing a digital technology for Regent's Park
ParkNav
OVERVIEW
Our team created a digital technology for Regent's Park as part of a school project. It can be accessed through a mobile app and physical kiosks in the park. The goal of the technology is to make it easy for people to find information, navigate the park, reserve a park pitch, and join a community of park-goers. The aim of the project is not only to solve problems for users, but also to improve the overall user experience in the park.
Role in the project
In this project, my research background on anthropology enabled me to identify areas of focus during the naturalistic observation and user interviews. I was actively involved in every step of the design process, from initial ideation to the final implementation. I have gained valuable insights through these experiences, such as how to work in a team, communication techniques, and how to collaborate with others. I believe that working in a group is essential in the design process and I have learned to take advantage of the collective knowledge and skills of my team.
Timeline
Oct - Dec 2021
Categories
User Research
UI Design
Ideation
Wireframing
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Teammates
Chikkala Janardhan Rao Massar
Patricia Sanchez
Annie Sanford
The Brief
Design a creative and tailored interactive digital technology that will enhance the experience of visitors to either an open-air space or a museum of your choice. The technology should enable visitors to leave a digital “trace”, i.e. to contribute some form of digital content to the space.
Design process
Overview
Our team chose Regent's Park as our design space due to its variety of activities, central location and COVID-19 safety measures.
We initiated our design process by adhering to the 4-step UX design process:
User Research – Understanding users, their current user journey, and identifying opportunities to enhance their experience
Conceptual Design – Defining design goals and exploring ideas through ideation
Detailed Design – Creating wireframes and prototypes of the digital technology
Evaluation – Identifying usability issues and making improvements to the design
User Research
Methods
We employed naturalistic observation to understand the types of users and their behaviours within the park. Additionally, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 park visitors to gather information about their habits, preferences, and reasons for visiting.
Findings
- Navigation is challenging, maps are not well-dispersed throughout the park and people have difficulty reading maps
- People are observed to be using technology and mobile phones while sitting on benches
- The park is large with a diverse range of people, with no specific gathering place except for the pitches
- Information about booking football pitches is difficult to find and unclear
- Many dog walkers let their dogs off-leash
Personas and User Journey
Based on our observations and findings, we created two personas and corresponding user journeys.
Based on user journeys and personas, we looked closer at how the personas currently achieve their goal, and identified pain points and opportunities for improvement. We then extracted the problems and opportunities and brainstormed as many "How might we" statements as possible to search for solutions.
We later used affinity grouping to identify trends in our solutions. Our team then evaluated the feasibility of the ideas and determined the direction for our product in terms of functionality. As a result, we decided to focus on four main features:
An interactive map /
A feature for booking sports pitches /
A list of events happening in the park /
A community page that enables users to connect with others who share similar interests.
Conceptual and detailed design
We sketched some of the early designs individually, then progressed to creating medium and higher-fidelity designs. Eventually, we developed an interactive prototype for the mobile app and physical kiosk. Throughout this process, we regularly came together as a team to provide feedback on each other's wireframes and collectively discussed the desired design and user interactions, focusing on making the product intuitive and user-friendly.
Evaluation
We conducted a usability evaluation with 6 participants to identify weaknesses in the design and provide the basis for potential improvements. 13 tasks were created to test the main features of the mobile app and kiosk. Based on the evaluation results, we further refined labels and some features within the app to increase its ease of use.
Introducing
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