Title
Dominic Rishe - Rhode Island School of Design
the brief
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La Calabria offre una proposta turistica d'eccezione soprattutto nei mesi estivi. Progetta un concept per un'app da usare nella regione Calabria per selezionare le spiagge da visitare e in cui trascorrere le vacanze estive in base alle proprie preferenze che sia per la tipologia di spiaggia (rocciosa, sabbiosa ecc..), l'affluenza turistica (affollata o meno, orari migliori ecc..), tipo di attività che possono essere svolte e altro
Persona profile
Goals:
Discover unique and beautiful beaches in the Calabria region for her upcoming summer vacation.
Find beaches that cater to her personal preferences (e.g. sandy beaches, not too crowded, opportunities for activities like snorkeling and beach volleyball).
Efficiently plan her vacation itinerary to make the most out of her time in Calabria.
Pain Points:
Difficulty in finding reliable, up-to-date, and comprehensive information on various beaches in Calabria.
Feeling overwhelmed by the abundance of choices and not knowing which beaches to prioritize.
Concerns about navigating to the beaches and the availability of parking spaces or public transportation options.
Behavior:
Laura enjoys researching and planning her trips in advance. She often uses travel blogs, social media, and tourism websites to find information on her desired destinations. Laura also reads reviews and asks for recommendations from friends and online communities.
App Preferences:
The app should offer a user-friendly interface with easy navigation.
The app should provide detailed and accurate information about the beaches, including photos, type of beach, tourist attendance, and activities available.
The app should allow users to filter and sort beaches based on their preferences.
The app should offer personalized recommendations based on the user's profile and preferences.
The app should provide information on how to get to the beaches, parking options, and nearby amenities (e.g. restaurants, bars, restrooms).
This user persona should give you a good starting point for understanding the needs, goals, and preferences of your target audience. You can use this information to guide your app design and ensure that it addresses the specific needs of users like Laura.
Name: Laura Bianchi
Age: 35
Occupation: Marketing Manager
Location: Milan, Italy
Marital Status: Married, no children
Interests: Traveling, photography, outdoor activities, food, and wine tasting
Feedbacks
Good job!
I think Laura's interests are very much in line with the brief and the photos are very nice and they remember Calabria, maybe Tropea, country overlooking the sea, in the "Costa degli dei".
You could specify places in Calabria like: Tropea, Scilla, Palmi, Capo Vaticano,Isola di Capo Rizzuto, Soverato, Pizzo, Parghelia and others.
One thing that could be useful for the creation of the app is that in Calabria there are several trains that connect the various countries, especially if they are seaside resorts.
Concept
Based on Laura's user persona, we can identify several key features that the app should include, as well as some ideas for the interface design. Here are some suggestions:
Key Features:
Beach Discovery: A feature that allows users to explore beaches in Calabria by providing an interactive map with beach locations, photos, and brief descriptions. Users can tap on a beach to get more information.
Beach Filters: Users should be able to filter beaches based on their preferences, such as the type of beach (rocky, sandy, etc.), tourist attendance (crowded or not), and available activities (snorkeling, beach volleyball, etc.).
Personalized Recommendations: The app should offer tailored beach suggestions based on the user's profile and preferences. This feature can be powered by a machine learning algorithm that analyzes user input and provides a list of the most relevant beaches.
Beach Details: When a user selects a beach, the app should display an in-depth description of the beach, including photos, type of beach, tourist attendance, activities, and user reviews. This will help users make informed decisions about which beaches to visit.
Navigation & Parking: The app should offer real-time navigation to the selected beach, as well as information on parking availability and public transportation options.
Save & Share: Users should be able to save their favorite beaches, create a custom itinerary, and share their selections with friends and family.
Local Amenities: The app should provide information on nearby amenities, such as restaurants, bars, restrooms, and accommodations.
Interface Design:
The app should have a clean and visually appealing design that uses high-quality images of Calabria's beaches to create an immersive experience.
The home screen can feature a search bar for quick beach queries, a selection of featured beaches, and access to the interactive map.
The interactive map should use clear icons and labels to make it easy for users to identify and select beaches.
The beach details page should be well-organized and easy to read, with separate sections for the description, activities, and user reviews. Photos should be prominently displayed to give users a clear sense of what the beach looks like.
The app should use a consistent color scheme and typography that reflects the coastal theme and creates a sense of calm and relaxation.
The app should be responsive and adapt to different screen sizes and orientations for a seamless user experience on various devices.
Feedbacks
The graphics of the application are very nice and the colours seem to me to be appropriate for the use of the application.
Perhaps the shape of the region doesn't quite resemble reality, but I think this is midjourney's fault.
Notes and reflections
Notes from persona development with ChatGPT:
Tried a few different prompting techniques to see if ChatGPT responded differently to the cultural context of the prompt (Calabria). See below.
Technique #1: Standard prompting
Simply asked ChatGPT to help me by creating a persona for the given prompt (after translating to English). This resulted in the persona posted above, and is what I carried over to Midjourney to develop the images.
Technique #2:
Chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting (see here)
Included some intermediate thinking in the prompt to try to get the model to take a specific approach when generating its answer - in this case to be mindful of the cultural indiosyncrasies of the Calabrian region. In the resulting persona the user was the same age, but now had 2 children and was focused more on a family-friendly, relaxing, and easy experience as opposed to the previous persona's focus on finding the right beach, doing many activities, and having an efficient itinerary. See below for full persona.
Technique #3: Role playing
Started the prompt by having ChatGPT act as someone I thought would have the deepest cultural knowledge of the region: namely an elderly person with deep familial ties to the area. Then created a scenario where this person would be put in a position to give their opinion for this persona.
Notably, besides some very surface-level role playing ("Ciao, my dear grandchild!), I was surprised by how "standard" and generic the response was. Not what I would expect from the prescribed role (but maybe that's my bias!)
Technique #4: Generated Kowledge (see here)
Started by asking ChatGPT to generate some knowledge about the culture of Calabria to establish some ground truth before moving into the persona development. After it produced a list of cultural facts, I asked it to use those facts to develop a user persona that responded to the design brief while respecting the established facts and allowing them to influence the app design.
This time the persona was a young traveller who is interested in being a responsible tourist, learning and experiencing the Calabrian culture, and supporting local businesses during his trip.
Notes from persona development with MidJourney:
Thought this was maybe interesting:
street style photo of a woman on vacation in Calabria, shot on Afga Vista 400, golden hour --v5
street style photo of a woman who lives in Calabria, shot on Afga Vista 400, golden hour --v5