Learning from the Past

Last week, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and map out the Pier 39. However, we found out it is not a good idea to map this place, because of two main reasons:
1. There are already many accessible tools, ramps that are already very convenient for people to access.
2. We do not have clear variables of what kind of places are qualify for us to map.
Therefore, it is kind of wasting of time for us to go there and collect information that we need to make the map. However, through this experience, It actually makes me feel more clear of what type of places are suitable for us to map: places that are lack of sufficient accessibility information, uneven paths & textures, many elevations

Photos of us measuring the elevation of the ground by using “Measure”

Another problem that I realized for myself is that I always thought that we need to define what is our SOM SAM TAM in order to have a clear direction for us to explore. In fact, not everything must be done by following an order. A lot of these problems that we struggled a lot might be solved naturally during in the user test. I learned that when I have been entangled in a problem, I should either choose to move forward or explore more directions instead of stuck in one problem over and over again. And it will make the team more efficient.

In addition, based on our user testing process this weekend, I learned that the strategy of finding people matters a lot. Since our map was developed based on the location of the Japanese tea garden, went onsite directly to ask if someone is willing to try out our map is usually what we did. And we always had a hard time finding people to test the map. This time, we came up with a new strategy that we looked for people outside of Japanese tea garden, and ask if they would like to go to Japanese tea garden for free with our map. We found that in this way, we can find users so much easier. So we decided to continue to use this strategy to find more people and do more user testing.

Next Step

1. Refine MVP
2. Enhance publicity of the map and trying to sell it on websites and acquire more users