11.16 Contextualizing Concepts

Since the team decides to pursue concepts that happen around bus stops, we decided to spend sometime to actually observe people’s behaviors around bus stops.

Before we headed out, we listed down some potential behaviors people might engage in at the bus stops:

• Watch for their bus
• Look at Bus Stop sign
• Look down to their cell phone
• Check bus times
• Play games on cell phone
• Read news
• Listen to music on headphones
• Lean against structure
• Put backpack onto structure - relieve weight on shoulders from bags
• Ask others if it is the right bus stop
• When the bus is coming
• Older people just sit there and wait

Bus Stop Observation

1. Findings from the Morewood bus stop:

• There were a lot of female pairs
• Men were usually single
• Female pairs were usually talking to each other
• Everyone was leaning on the side of the wall
• Linearity of the bus stop makes it difficult for individuals to see each other

2. Findings from the Forbes Ave bus stop:

• There was an approximately 3-meter distance between strangers
• People who work on campus usually used seating
• Some people just stood on the grass
• People tried to avoid the jogging route
• People either looked down the road, or looked toward the bus arrival direction
• There were some flyers on the shelter
• There tended to be a more scattered configuration around the stop
• People usually waited for under 10 minutes

After the observation, we discussed possible design directions that we could consider:

1. The system can be a multi-modal one:

• The system can show bus information and has functions that encourage connections among strangers (Types of transit information apps we looked at are Busgazer, Googlemap, Truetime) (Ludic vs. Information)
• What if we make the system instagrammable? Can we utilize hashtags to activate the space? (#SelfieBration — Old Navy)

2. Something surprising can be introduced as triggers for interaction:

• If we choose this playful route, it might needs to change from time to time so that people aren’t sick of it (Starbucks cups?)
• Maybe texts is not necessary, the system can provide affordance for engagement without using language (Nudging behavior with Yo app?)

3. The system can be a collaborative one:

• co-effort to make bus schedules more accurate?

4. The system can be a portal for showcasing flyers:

• Pole with flyers — people may want to go see that
• Targeted neighborhood information may be showcased through the portal

5. The system can be a voting machine:

• UNICEF example — Marie Nakano, making impact through voting

To-Do for Monday

• Check out physical bus stops and design with constraints
• Document, take photos, measure
• Pick particular sites to design for
• Go around and do this on Saturday (research good bus stops / popular ones)
• Dan meeting, prep and takeaway synthesis
• Meeting to ideate and complete concept details (TBD)
• Start prototyping for presentation
• Create presentation for Monday (?)
• Re-examine micro-interactions at the bus stop