UX in Real Spaces

Improving the User Experience of DigiPen

UX is Everything

We make the world a better place by improving its UX.

In one of my classes, I was tasked with analyzing the User Experience of the school and see if I could ideate improvements. I took this a step further, to see if I could make it happen.

The User experience I decided to take a closer look at was how students navigated the school.

Project Spec

I moved quickly for this project, working on it for about 40 hours across two weeks.

In that time I would talk with 30 students about their experiences navigating the school and reached out to 4 stakeholders within the school who had the channels to make change happen.

User Interviews

I started out by interviewing those newest to the school. I reached out to six freshmen about how they learned to navigate the space, I asked them for directions to classrooms they had classes in and rooms they had never been to before and allowed them to use a map if they wanted.

I discussed with them what pain points they had learning the school's layout and how difficult it was for them to become acquainted with the space.

1 User

2 Users

Used only the map on their phone

Used the physical maps around the school and their phone

Used only the physical maps around the school

Orientation Points

When giving directions, these were the orientation points used by the users.

On the map, here's where these points are:

5 of the 6 Users

reported feeling lost or confused while navigating the school ranging from the first few days to the first four weeks.

The 6th user was not a map user, and navigated by following their friend.

Observation

Something interesting happens when the users used the map on their phone. After zooming in to look closer, users rotated the map upside down, then tilted their heads in the opposite direction to read the room names.

This behavior was observed even when the location directions were asked from was positioned at the bottom of the map.

Hypothesis: Because the DigiPen map is oriented with its entrance "up", users rotate the map 180 degrees to orient themselves with the way they entered the building and the landscape outside. Users feel as though they enter a map from the bottom.

Problem Statements

After interviewing users I developed two problem statements that would allow me to explore solutions to improve the user experience of navigating the school.

Develop a navigation system that allows students to easily travel to unfamiliar rooms.

Modify the building map in order to allow students to easily orient themselves in the building.

Persona

To ensure that my design is focused, I next developed a persona for a target user.

Crystal

First-year Artist

Age: 18

Prounouns: She/They

Studying: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Art and Animation

Background

Crystal moved to Redmond from West Virginia. This is their first time living in a city but they're excited to learn how to make art for games. A quiet introvert, the first few days of orientation and dozens of new faces has them feeling a little emotionally spent, but they are still looking forward to starting their classes.

Needs

Crystal's hands are usually full carrying around a bulky case of art supplies. Introverted and not wanting to be a bother, they don't like to ask students they don't know for help.

This means Crystal's preferred method of navigating the school is to use the physical maps placed at the staircases.

Proposed Solutions - Set 1

Develop a navigation system that allows students to easily travel to unfamiliar rooms.

Implement a program like Indoors - Vicinia
Have a program print customized maps for students with their classrooms and any added points of interest color coded.
Create a app that students can input their current location and desired location that draws a route on the building map for the student to follow.

Users who use only the map on their phone

Users who use only the physical campus maps

Crystal

While all these ideas adress the problem statement at hand, they fail to serve everyone in our audience. Only users who use their phone to navigate benefit from these solutions.

While in user interviews, less students used just the physical maps, their situations are real and we should aim to serve them as well.

Proposed Solutions - Set 2

Modify the building map in order to allow students to easily orient themselves in the building.

Recode the map to make focal points more salient.
Reorient the map 180 degrees so that the entrance faces down.
Create a app that smart orients the map to whichever way the student is facing.

As these ideas address the map itself and look for ways to improve the experience at a place directly causing confusion, we're able to serve everyone in our audience. If the maps get updated, this improves the experience of the physical and digital maps.

Users who use only the map on their phone

Users who use only the physical campus maps

Crystal

Exploration

I decided to explore the idea of rotating the map. Of all the solutions, this one potentially would have the best ratio of payoff to cost. It was time to do more research- this time on how maps are typically made, the mental model of the school students held, and the effects of a poorly oriented map on navigation.

Mental Models

In order to get a better understanding of why it was easier for users to read the map when it was upside down, I wandered the halls of DigiPen and asked random students and faculty to draw me a quick sketch of a floor we were not on, and give me directions to a room on that floor with it.

Here are some of the drawings.

Of the 15 drawings I recieved, only one was oriented with the front of the building facing the top of the page.

From this, my hypothesis would be that most users of the school have a mental model of the building oriented the opposite of the printed maps.

Map Research

I looked at lots of confusing maps before I landed on the idea of looking at amusement park maps- which go through a lot of design and care.

What I found was that every park map I looked at had their entrance facing the bottom of the map- except for a old edition of Hershey Park from 1974.

Current Map Effects

Around this point in the project I started to discuss the current map with Stakeholders in the Communications and Marketing department at DigiPen. Over the course of the project I talked to the graphic designer who worked on the current map, the Director of Design and Creative Services, and the Director of Operations.

The map was actually previously oriented like this:

This is the maps roation at the beginning of this project

The roation of the map was done a few years ago by marketing. The building has a semblance of a hand gun, and so it was flipped in hopes of removing this association, but how people use the map was not considered.

During this process, I talked to Professor Savage about the map. Map and psychology enthusiast, he was a wonderful source.

He noted that the gun association has not gone away, and it may actually be stronger due to the feeling of wrongness the map has with its new orientation. This leads Freashman to ask why the map is 'upside down' and rumors quickly travel the first week that it was flipped because it looks like a gun.

He also noted that because of the orientation of the map, it takes more mental energy to read. He mentioned that during the first few weeks of school, Freshmen have trouble navigating the space and are very anxious when they arrive late to a class. Students have an expectation of punishment (penalities) when they get lost so the importance of navigating the school becomes greater, and the penalty of failure becomes more salient.

Some of these penalties include:

missing out on class material
losing social capital with professor
Participation grade
embarrassment

Because stress impedes our ability to process information when students are running late using the map is actually harder. We hypothesize then, that new students trying to get to class are more likely to be confused by the maps orientation.

Proposal

After my reasearch and talking to Communications and Marketing about the previous changes done to the map, I created my proposal.

I proposed we orient the map like a chevron and fudge the length of it to take away the edges that make it look like a gun. I used brown to make it clear where this altering would be happening, but colors that blended in and made it look like a part of the building would be the best solution.

I discussed this idea with my stakeholders. I was not sure at first if smoothing out the building was a viable solution, but they agreed that while it made the scale of the rooms less accurate, it helped accomplish the original goal of removing the gun shape association, while achieving the new goal of a more intuitive map orientation.

There is one potential problem that this orientation had and that is that it takes up more vertical space then the other iterations of the map previously. This can affect the design of pamphlets for the school and may mean a smaller printing of the map.

Solution Spec

Problem Statement

Modify the building map in order to allow students to easily orient themselves in the building.

Target User

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Create a supportive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of our larger community and ensures the well-being of all

School Core Value Supported

New students, like Crystal, who need access to intuitive maps throughout the school.

Benefits

No need to reorient yourself upon enterance, orientation matches the mental model of users of the building.

Orientation places emphasis on 'landmarks' that user interviews highlighted in directions

Old Map

Proposed Map

Orientation allows for words to be typed horizontally- no head turning needed

"Fudging" gets rid of gun association without harming UX

Results

After presenting my solution and discussing the details of what a project like this would entail for Communications and Marketing, the change was approved by my Stakeholders in those departments. They aim to implement the changes over the summer to avoid any confusion and have the newly orientented map ready for incoming students in Fall of 2023.