Introduction
Akademiska Hus have been planning to improve the campus district of Umeå University. In their plannings it is included the construction of facilities as housing, education, healthcare and others to attract students and also the city's population.
However the facilities by itself need a way to be integrated in the people's life. So they challenge us to design a solution to make the Umeå Campus a more vibrant place by 2030.
My Role
This was a group project, made together with fellow designers Anton Almgren, Dan Robinson and Jan von Loeper. My role in this project was workshop preparations, user research, concept development, and interface design.
Understanding the problem
In order to understand what was the problem, we went to explore Umeå Campus, interviewing users, exploring common places, and talking to stakeholders.
Workshop with users
After talking to stakeholders and exploring the campus, we wanted to understand the problem by the users view. So we decided to produce two workshops with different users in order to understand and solve the problem with creative solutions.
The first workshop was a collective brainstorm were the participants were ask to contribute with ideas that would improve the campus area.
The second workshop produced was a role play game, where we asked the participants to assume a determined role in order to explore a simplified map from the campus area. They were asked to choose between actions, and to interact with other participants. This workshop made users bring questions and possible solutions for us to further explore.
With the workshops and early research, we discovered that people are interested what is happening in the campus, specially in events. But it is hard to know exactly when something is happening, because there is a gap between the information being posted in some kind of media (posters, Facebook groups, website) and the information being delivered to people interested in.
Also, they disliked the idea of being located as individuals due to security reasons.
So, our main focus with this project became to show people the events, the news about the campus and where other people are. In that way, we stimulate people to explore the campus and to visualize how vibrant it is.
Sketching Concepts
So after the interviews, research, workshops we had group ideation sessions, where we discussed the issues we have found and what the users told they wanted to see in the campus. After the ideation process, each one sketched a solution for our problem to make U
Vibly
After sketching concepts separately, we evaluate them and pick the best solutions from each to propose our final concept: VIBLY.
VIBLY is a system that shows where the crowds are, by showing vibrancy in a campus map. What we call vibrancy is the people, crowds, that are around the campus. We decided to show only groups of people, due to security reasons related to show where a single person is.
This system will also allow the stakeholders to publish events and other information for the public. Vibly has three basic touchpoints:
a key, one screen and an app.
The key is the main feature, it is a physical object that is given to people so they can access the campus and its facilities, this key also tracks the people's movements showing the crowd in the screen and on the app. In this way revealing the areas that are full of people, but not revealing individuals moves in order to security.
The screen is supposed to be installed in public areas on the campus showing the crowd's movements, news feed and events for people that still do not have access to the key and the app, working as a marketing for these system.
The screen is supposed to be installed in public areas on the campus showing the crowd's movements, news feed and events for people that still do not have access to the key and the app, working as a marketing for these system.
The app shows the crowd's movements, news feed and events as well. In addiction it also give access to stakeholders and allows the user to check for discounts, promotions, or to check if some place is available at the time and schedule it.
BLUEPRINT
In order to design the service, we made a Blueprint to wrap up all the touchpoints so we could understand better the proposal and to deliver a complete project.
Final Design
This is Vibly main screen, to be installed as a desk in strategic places in the campus and in the city center. The crowds are showed by using pink color and abstract shapes like clouds. The pink clouds will be moving according to the crowds movement. In this interface will also be shown some events that are happening in the time. The centered circle shows the time, and allows users to move back and forward to see past and coming events in the campus area.
The app will mimic the screen, showing the map with the crowds as well. With the app the user can interact more with the map and know upcoming events by dragging up the blue button, and explore places within the area by dragging down the purple button.
Prototype
Takeaway
To make Vibly go further, it would be necessary bring the concept to users to validate the ideas we had, and also make prototypes to test them with the users to collect feedback and make the necessary adjustments.
