Iteration I

As with the other design teams, Team Cerberus started this project aiming to create a novel interactive system to solve a problem for tourists in Heraklion. This was a very broad goal that could lead to any number of solutions. To start finding a more specific problem to work on, we went into the field to interview travelers and discover their frustrations while traveling in Heraklion, and we noted them down on pen and paper.

After our initial interviews, we made work activity notes to extract system requirements and build a WAAD, which is presented below. We then made a flow model and a social model focused on tourists finding ways to having fun in Heraklion, with and without the professional help of a travel agency. At this point in the process, we began to feel a bit stuck. We were surprised to find that most tourists felt they had no pressing problems to be solved, according to our limited data as well as the data collected by other teams. So our only parameters thusfar were the target audience: tourists and the context: Heraklion. Although we didn't strike a golden idea on Day 1, we decided to rest on it and not force anything too early in the process.

Interview Work Artifacts

Design Informing Models

This is our first draft flow model demonstrating how travelers have fun without contacting professionals. It shows the dynamics of travelers communicating with other travelers with no incentive and communicating with locals like shop owners who might only do it for their benefit. It proves an interesting relationship to consider between travelers and locals.

Flow Model I

This is our first draft of a flow model showing existing processes for a tourist trying to find fun things to do in Heraklion without going through a travel agency. Such a user might consult online resources like TripAdvisor, travel blogs, or Google Maps. They might also consult other people including other tourists, locals, and family and friends. Potential barriers we identified with these processes are denoted with lightning bolt icons.

WAAD

We divided our 12 interviews into 3 groups. Each of our members extracted 3-10 notes from each interview, depending on the quality and depth of the material. When extracting information, we focused on a range of data from detailed demography like nationality and language used, to general patterns like "tourist travel in groups" or "tourists have too many places to visit across Greece." After extraction, we grouped these notes by similarity (e.g. "tourists have been to Crete before" grouped with "tourists have been coming back since he's 11) and attribute (e.g. "tourists were from southern England" grouped with "tourists were from Netherland".) We then named each of the groups by its main feature. When arranging the sticky notes, we noticed that some groups can be further divided into subgroups (visit motivations can be further divided into motivation to visit Crete and motivation to visit the Archaeological Museum.) Some other groups, such as first-time visitors and repeat visitors, can be paired up to make a supergroup. We adjusted the hierarchy based on the ongoing discovery of what might be improved to make clusters more logical. For example, we first put the "issues" as a subgroup of "visit details." We later noticed that the relationship between the two groups is not a "belong to" relationship like for other subgroups (activities, motivations, number of visits), but rather a causal relationship. We made the notes one tier up to represent the logic.

Requirements Extraction

Primary Category

Secondary Category

WAAD ID

Requirement

Rationale

Finding information

information understandability

8.3, 1.7

Tourists should have access to signs and museum introductions with their languages

Tourists with various language experiences all express interests in engaging more with local culture

Finding information

information simplicity

8.4

Tourists should be able to see clear directions to the most famous collections

Some tourists go to museums looking for specific highlights of collection

Finding information

information simplicity

4.3, 5.2, 7.4, 12.3

Tourists should be able to travel across different places in Greece without information overload

Most tourists plan to visit more than one place in Greece, but the majority of them only have 1-2 weeks to explore

Finding information

information understandability

8.3, 1.7

Tourists should be able to directed to museum workers who speak their language and know the information they want

Museum workers are a potential source of information, but they're not frequently reached out by tourists partly due to language barrier

Finding Information

cultural immersiveness

6.1

Tourists should be able to learn the history related to each piece of collection

Most tourists in the museum lists history learning as their primary goal of visit

Finding information

information simplicity

2.5

Tourist should be able to find information and make easy comparisons between different travel agencies

Tourists report bad experience when travel agents make inconsiderate arrangements

Finding information

information simplicity

5.1, 10.4, 10.5, 11.4, 12.5

Tourists should be able to easily find what activities to do based on their interests

Tourists have various level of interests for different types of activities

Recording events

planning for future visits

1.4, 2.4, 7.1, 10.1

Tourists should be able to record the activities they did in preparation for their next visit

Revisiting tourists like to go to places they have been before and food they have tried

Recording events

keeping good memories

1.4, 2.4, 10.1, 1.1

Tourists should be able to record good memories and share them within their group

Most tourists travel in groups; a majority of them are repeat visitors who travel with the same group of people to make their memory alive

Transition

We selected our theme through several rounds of diverging and converging ideas. Initially, we decided to focus our project on designing an interactive museum that enhances child education and engagement in archaeological museums. We identified a key problem: while archaeological museums are popular attractions for families, children often find these settings less engaging than their parents due to the heavy reliance on text-based exhibits.

To better understand the situation, we used the Known/Unknown table to list potential questions and biases. Through this exploration, we realized we were making many assumptions without actually investigating the real circumstances. For instance, we assumed that children are generally bored by museums, that interactive exhibits are accessible to most visitors, and that parents do not want their children accompanying them. Due to the understanding of our limited expertise in child psychology, the constraint of format, and the difficulty of recruiting appropriate participants, we decided to shift our focus to develop an app that addresses a more general problem faced by a broader group of visitors of Heraklion.

We developed our next idea based on the finding that many tourists are repeat visitors, and that they had already been to the most famous tourist attractions and tried a list of activities. To solve the problem that repeat visitors might want to explore something new but have limited information of ongoing events and local information, our idea developed into building a bridge between visitors and local community. However, we noticed a potential imbalance of interest because the app tends to benefit visitors more than locals. When consulting our clients, they suggested that offering coupons might be the best way to engage locals and encourage them to actively post information. While we agreed that this could be an effective short-term solution, we believe it would not sustain long-term interest. Therefore, we decided to narrow down our target group into only travelers, divided into two groups (first-time visitors & repeat visitors.) We explored ideas to improve the experience of both groups by promoting their communication about local information.

When we discussed our ideas with our professors, we realized that there was no one single distinction between first-time visitors and repeat visitors. Instead of treating them as separate user roles, we decided to implement a credibility system. This system will show and sort information based on the local travel experience of the content creator.

Work Artifacts

Guerilla Testing

We started presenting our paper prototype to travelers at the end of the week. Before going into the field, we peer-tested it with one student. In the field, we tested with seven groups of travelers from various nations, receiving different reactions to the prototype. Below is a table of the observations and comments made during the demonstrations.

In general, we noticed the app workflow was intuitive, though there were break points in the navigation bar iconography. Many travelers did not understand the icon for the map view, often mistaking it for a camera and attempting to click it when asked to create a post. Most other break points were due to language barriers and clarity issues in the script.

When asked about the credibility system, many travelers expressed great interest, considering it more reliable. One traveler commented, "It would be a great way to avoid tourist traps" (Interview Group 7). The olive tree iconography also received positive feedback, as travelers found it an easy way to understand the system.

Overall, the majority of travelers interviewed expressed interest in downloading and using an app of this type. Some participants noted they would use the app to find information but would not create posts themselves. One participant mentioned he would not download the app, preferring to use his phone to learn more about a location without being constantly on it. However, he would be more inclined to use it if we implemented a credibility feature.

From this feedback, we plan to:

clean up our iconography
shift focus from features that are common to other social media apps to unique features, namely the credibility functionality to differentiate new and repeat visitors

Observation Table

Interview #

breakdown points

Observation

location-based filtering on map view

Traveler clicked the list view button when prompted to do location-based filtering

1, 2, 6

creating new posts

Traveler clicked the map view icon or an existed post when prompted to create a new post

2, 4

map view icon

Traveler had confusion about the meaning of the compass icon for map view

2, 6

back arrow from nearby posts to map view

Traveler found it unclear if the back arrow would lead them back to the map view or the general list view

getting information from list view

Traveler understood the list of posts as one post with comments underneath

saving a post

Traveler understood the list of posts as one post with comments underneath

profile icon

Traveler asked whether the people icon is for list of contacts

Notes:

Travelers think they're more likely to share a post when they know that their friends are on the app
Travelers think they're more likely to share a post about an enjoyable experience instead of a less enjoyable one
Travelers think most features and workflows are intuitive and aligned to popular apps such as Google Maps or Instagram
Most travelers have a positive attitude toward the option of sending anonymous posts
Some travelers prefer information shared under real names to ensure credibility
Travelers prefer the app to cover a list of cities rather than just Heraklion
Travelers feel more comfortable to get information rather than sharing information
Travelers prefer to read more about history and facts about the place rather than what other people want to share
Travelers values a piece of information more if it's shared by local people
Travelers share a need of more specific filters such as vegan food options

Preparing for Iteration II

Next week we will synthesize the feedback we received in Iteration I (with extra emphasis on our guerilla testing) to refine our system and create higher fidelity models. We plan to:

focus on the credibility feature of our system
redesign icons that were confusing to our test audience
further differentiate our system from existing social media applications

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