Turning to the offline activities
- Irene (Shiyin Zheng)
- Jun 11, 2019
- 3 min read
This week, we built an initial user journey map to show our design, and we changed our focus from online to offline as a main approach to attracting students.
User journey map
We first chose the "candy jar" as a metaphor of a message box. We thought that picking messages randomly was quite like the process of picking candies from a jar, and we made mapped the touchpoints of the experience, making a user journey out of it. We showed the complete service combined with online and offline activities.
At first we thought the online part as the main part for the starting. We simply decided on making an app, because it was the most accessible way, which was proven to be a too-hurried decision in the later stage. We then thought about the user flow and the content of the app.
Deepika and I made the initial wireframes of the app. After user register with their student id, information of course and gender, they can choose different filter to search messages. They can also start a message by pressing the plus sign. In the message editing function, users can choose cooking as a group or cooking with only one person.
Turning to the offline activities
However, after our tutorial with John, we found we were too hurried to the app. Plus, the app may not be the best way for attracting university students, but real activities and event or physical assets are better. We turned to the offline activities as our main triggers of the service and found them more suitable for the start of the journey. Thus, we re-discussed about the offline activities.
We got a couple of new ideas after brainstorming. One is about the an interactive digital ocean ground with fish representing for messages - Users interact with the ground and catch the messages randomly. The second is a coffee/vending machine - The user can input the message (as coffee beans) and if it fits the requirement, he can get one coffee out. He would use his phone as a cup to get the coffee. The third one is about mailboxs. Similarly, input new letters and get messages out from another mailbox after a certain amount of time.
We chose the idea of the interactive ground as we thought it more interesting for people interacting with it in public places, and seeing people interacting with the ground is easier to attract more people.
Getting technical support
I drew out a simple version of our ideas and we went to Creative Technology Lab to ask about technical details. We found it was possible to achieve the interaction. It involved with depth-cameras, some computer vision knowledge and some P5 coding and a database set-up. Although it was possible, we did not have enough time and we were in lack of knowledge background.
Feedbacks
Some people suggested we could look broader than UAL to see the exact value we want to target. Some thought this was a closed system and we should also think about the surplus. Some agreed that students were worried about the money part and they may be the possible target group. People also suggested collaborating with established systems, like organisations or cooking schools, cooking skills training schools for young people, which have their social purposes. Some suggested we clarifying the exchange part.
Reflection
In the technical part, although we did not have enough time, Johnny and I really wanted to make the interactive ground real and we believed that making half of them real is still possible. Agreeing on the technical part, we decided that we two continued with the technical part and the other two members figuring out the concept video. When Johnny and I finally decided that we would only make one small interaction (because of the time), which is about attracting fish, we talked with other team members. It was from there that I realised I was stuck in the detail and almost forgot about the big picture. We were about to spend one week in realising that interaction, but it was not that important for our whole design concept. For one, the interaction we picked was not the most important one, or even irrelevant with the core concept (unless it is about setting filters); For another, the technical part was not worth one week, since the idea was still incomplete. I realised that I was easily stuck with details but left out the whole thing. I should remember to think about the ultimate goal instead of being stuck with the ongoing tasks, which are less important when compared to the final outcome.
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