Brief:
The Kranen (Swedish for crane) building at Malmö University is notoriously difficult to navigate.
Our first project in the Interaction Design Masters program was to design a new navigation system for the building.
Overview:
Pathfinder is a building navigation system that uses SMS directions and ASCII character floor paths to get users to their desired destinations.
Users text what they are looking for to the system and in response, they receive personalized directions that reference the relevant floor paths.
Team:
Anna Beckert, Nafiseh Bouhendi
Understanding:
Since we were new to Kranen as well, we first spent some time trying to understand the complicated structure and layout of the building.
We used quick sketches and eventually, 3D models to visualize the composition of the building, the locations of the entrances and the naming conventions used to describe room locations.
Field Research:
Using interviews and ethnographic observation, we conducted research in the building to discover what the key navigational challenges were.
We found that there were two main issues:
1) Transition Zones: People had difficulty navigating between the different “slices” of the building. They could confidently move around in one section of the building on one floor, but had problems moving between these areas.
2) Personalized Directions: The existing way-finding tools (maps and signage) didn’t help users who wanted specific directions to the locations they were headed.
Mapping User Flow:
Using the data we gathered during field research, we created a diagram that visualized the typical flow of users entering the building.
This helped us to understand and visualize how our proposed solution might fit into the existing user behaviour patterns.
Ideation:
Early in the project, we decided that we wanted to design a solution that relied on mobile phones and SMS messaging.
The choice to go with a mobile solution was natural – “everyone” using the building had mobile phones.
However, our research showed that building navigation was only a short term concern for our users – “Once I know where my classroom is, I don’t need to ask for help anymore.”
For this reason, it didn’t make sense to design a mobile application because it would only get used one or two times.
Basing our solution on SMS leveraged the technologies already available on all mobile phones and kept the interaction simple and familiar for users.
Paper Prototyping:
In our first prototype, users could request directions via text message that referenced coloured “checkpoints” placed at the each of the identified transition zones.
This worked to validate the idea of SMS wayfinding but still had a few problems.
For one, we realized that referencing colours in a text message – a monochrome medium – was problematic for users. We needed to use reference points that were better suited for the SMS medium.
Secondly, we discovered that users had difficulty navigating “between” the checkpoints. We needed to provide them with more wayfinding reference points than the checkpoints allowed.
User Testing:
For the next iteration of the prototype, we replaced the coloured checkpoints with ASCII character paths.
This addressed both the issues we uncovered with our paper prototype and users were able to follow paths of common SMS characters (IE: $,@,%) with relative ease.
In light of the new floor paths, we moved the signage describing the system to the ground, but found that it didn’t work very effectively.
Because users were looking up while navigating the building, forcing them to look down at the ground for our signage put them at significant risk of bumping into others.
It also made it difficult to see the signage at a distance.
Final Prototype:
Our final prototype pulled together the results of all of the previous prototyping and testing. Here’s how it works:
1) The user enters the building and sees a Pathfinder station on the floor.
2) She looks up and sees the signage that matches the floor station.
3) She sends a text message with a room number or person’s name to the number on the sign.
4) She gets a text message back with directions to that location.
5) She follows the symbol paths using the directions to get to her destination.
