With our first prototype up and tested from last week, we analyzed the data we recorded and scratched our chins to map out our next steps for the few weeks we had left for the quarter. After doing some calculations, we realized that the sign with our decorative hat perched on top of it received ~400% more attention (measured in looks from passerbyers in a given 20 minute period) compared to the same pole without our hat. Tempted to be satisfied with this result, we decided to keep combing through our data to see how to improve this further. These results allowed us to conclude that noticeability of the sign and its location were two large factors that could (and should!) be considered before planning to finalize a second prototype.
A few questions were floating around in our heads: Is this our final prototype? What else can be implemented? Is there a way to gather more data from the campus on a smaller scale? After speaking with our mentors, we felt more prepared for our next steps ahead. Perhaps we could choose one of the six colleges within UCSD to try our hand, and see what results we find. So, as any designer would ask, our mentors asked us what the main goal was — again — what do your users really need? We decided that our users needed to feel confident when navigating around campus; so how could we ensure this? Because our hats gained some popularity on Transfer Day, perhaps having enough of these conspicuous hats propped around campus, users would feel more confident that they can be directed to where they need to go.
However, since we don’t have much time left and it’s hard to grab people from our target audience (newcomers to campus), Alan gave us the insight that we don’t actually need an entirely large amount of users to test our prototype to know whether or not it was successful or not if each user complains/praises the same types of things. So we decided that we could test our next prototype on at least 5 users who are unfamiliar with a certain part of campus.
Joshua helped us devise an experiment to test whether or not hats are a helpful landmark. So each street sign only has a couple of directions that it points to, and if a user wanted to go in a direction that was not labeled by the sign, then they wouldn’t have a clear idea on where to go. To tackle this, we thought that in the worst case if a user doesn’t know where to go, we can at least point them in the direction of the next hat which would help increase their confidence of getting to their next destination. So we decided our experiment would be that we are going to give unfamiliar users of a certain area in UCSD a map of where the hats are located with respect to that area and tell them to go from point A to B. We will then ask them about how confident they felt navigating the routes. By doing this experiment, it will be apparent if users find the hats useful or not. And if most users do find the hats helpful, then we can keep refining our idea!
Stick with us next week to see the next iteration of our prototype and experiment come to life! Until then, Team De.Sign, signing off!
