Knight Quest An interactive map of Clarkson. by Derek Klatt and RB Johnson 11/29/12

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Gary Knight
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1 Knight Quest An interactive map of Clarkson by Derek Klatt and RB Johnson 11/29/12

2 Evaluating Designs Problem Space: Our goal is to create an interactive map of Clarkson s campus. This map will provide a visual representation of Clarkson s campus and a provide a search, which will take the current location and a destination, and then provide text directions and visual aids to guide the user. It will also provide alternative routes if the user is not satisfied with the default route. We are pursuing this project because finding new locations can be a daunting task for those unfamiliar with the campus. As such our primary users would be freshmen, graduate students, exchange students, parents, prospective students and other visitors. Usability Goals: Effective: The whole point of the project is to give accurate directions to a location, so effectiveness at doing that is paramount. If it can t get you where you need to go, the map will be useless. Efficient: Some users may use this only when they have exhausted all other option and our out of time, so it needs to be quick to use. Easy to learn: The primary user of this product will be freshmen unfamiliar with the campus, so this will be a stressful time for them. Learning how to use this shouldn't add to that stress. The most important of these is effectiveness, as no matter how fast or easy it is to use if the directions are inaccurate then the program is useless. User Experience Goals: The only user experience goal that really applies would be helpfulness as the goal of the program is to direct the user to their destination. It should be unobtrusive otherwise as any distracting features would slow the user down from their primary goal. Conceptual Model: The conceptual model for this project is based on Google maps. The system will take a user entered location and will show a map of the school overlaid with a path to the destination. It will give instructions based on key landmarks along the way to make the path more recognizable with alternative routes if the default path is not the most desirable. The system will have in it a map of the school and a list of room numbers, classes, professor's offices, and events that will be linked to the physical location corresponding to this information. Primary Persona: Our primary persona is Joe the Freshman. We created Joe based on data from survey 1 and informal questioning about people s freshman year. Joe is not the only persona we are looking into, but he is probably the most common. Other types of users we are taking into account are graduate students, who are looking for the 4th floor of the science center and where to park, parents, who are looking for events on campus and where to park, and delivery men, who are looking for their delivery location and where to park (notice a trend here?).

3 Joe the Freshman A fresh out of high school, college freshman, Joe is looking forward to college life and wants to do well. Joe doesn't have the best memory or planning ability, but he makes up for it with excitement and determination. On the first day of classes Joe is recovering from an exciting orientation and suddenly realizes he has five minutes to get to his first class. Not wanting to be late for his first day, he jumps out of bed and runs towards the academic buildings. Once there he realizes he has no idea where his classroom is. With only a few minutes till class starts he whips out his smartphone and types in the name of his class. It then lights up with directions from his current location. Sprinting through the doors, Joe takes his seat just as the professor starts talking. Users' needs and expectations: Based off the surveys, the user would need a complete map of the local area that would provide directions on how to get from one place to another. The primary areas people seem interested in are the academic buildings, offices, student life areas, parking areas, and residence buildings. Academic almost always ranked first but the importance of different areas varied greatly between different demographics so the map needs to be as thorough as possible. Implications: Based on the data gathered, the map will need to be as complete as possible and provide clear directions from point A to point B. The map would need to be as descriptive as possible without hurting the visibility. The map will need to be usable on both the desktop for the advance planner and on mobile devices for the last second user. While not the first thing on users minds, alternative routes were important to them when offered during the survey and informal questioning. The Design Process: First we looked at existing software that has the same functionality like google maps and mapquest and based our first design off it. This gave us a standard for what our map should look and how the map should feel. Next we took some scratch paper and started drawing other possible looks for the map. This lead to the idea of separating the map and directions and then how the separation would look.

4 Design 1: Strengths: Everything right there More intuitive Desktop friendly Weaknesses: Harder to get alternative directions Directions are more condensed Not mobile nor printer friendly Design 2: Strengths: Simple Alternatives are more accessible Directions are easy to read Mobile and printer friendly

5 Weaknesses: Extra actions to search again Not easy to compare map to directions Design 3: Strengths: Shows all the information Weaknesses: Cluttered Non-intuitive Not mobile nor printer friendly Extra actions to search again From taking surveys and the expert reviews, the data that we collected shows that design 3 is the most popular followed by 2 and then 1. The data is based on users ranking the designs as their first, second, or third choice and then summing those choices from all the users. Thus lower numbers are better because it means that more users ranked it as first or second. Design 1 Design 2 Design 3 Points Rank The current prototype is a form of design 3 with the added features of being able to close out of alternate routes that aren t desired and having the map with directions pop up in a new window instead of replacing the search bar. The user is expected to use the interactive map of Clarkson like google maps or mapquest. The user will enter the location they want to find in the lower seach bar and their current location in the top search box and then get directions to their destination. If the user just wants to get the lay of the land, then they can use the interactive

6 map by clicking the building to see the floor plans of that building. Using only the search feature will center the map on the location the user wants to see. We have run into a few limitations and implementation challenges. The largest limitation so far has been getting through the red tape to get access to the floor plans of the buildings. We had to get permission and talk to different people and now are teaming up with Gerald Bova who is still making the floor plans and will give them to us when he is done. The other large challenge ahead of us is making a pathfinding algorithm that will accurately and effectively get the user from point A to point B. We wanted to have an actual map of campus for this iteration but were unable to produce one because we are still getting the floor plans of the buildings on campus. At present moment we have a program for entering data into the map so that as we get floor plans we can link it to data for what is on that floor. The pathfinding algorithm is also coming along nicely. The program is starting to take shape, and a working prototype should be completed within the next week. Evaluation The evaluation technique we will used is a hierarchical task analysis. This involves creating tasks and subtasks for how the user is expected to use the interactive map. The tasks we choose are shown below. We choose this evaluation technique because the prototype is still in development and this method does not require a product to be tested. We went through the hierarchical task analysis with our user experience goal of helpfulness and usability goal of easy to use/learn. Going through the steps we theorized that the steps are basic and intuitive enough that the product should satisfy the easy to use and learn goal. As long as the map functions and the directions are accurate the user will feel helped at the end of the experience. Going through the steps, we noticed that if you don t know where you are and where you are going, the steps are really tedious and annoying. This creates the implication that if the user

7 falls in this situation, they might end up frustrated using the product. Our product could be improved by fixing the tediousness of using the map by implement the functionality of clicking a room/destination and giving the options to enter it as the destination or current location in the search bar. Hierarchical Test Tasks 0. To get directions to an area at Clarkson. 1. Open Kightquest 2. Click the building where your destination is 2.1 Go to the floor where the area you are looking for is in 2.2 Find the area you are looking for 3. Type your current location into the top search bar 3.1 Type your destination into the bottom search bar 3.2 Click search 4. Select desired route 4.1 Read directions 5. Arrive at destination If you know the name of your destination do , if you don t know the name of your destination do If you already know your way do 5 (why do you need us again?).

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