Mapit

Decision Matrix

We wanted to design something that the university could actually implement and as a result, we weighted feasibility the highest.

Since we were told that we had an endless amount of funding for the project, we weighted affordability the lowest. Since campus as well as the number of students on campus change quite often from term to term, we weighted scalability quite high. Finally, the amount of time students save from our design is of the utmost importance, so we also weighted that criterion a 5. Based on this collective weighted criteria, we found that a navigation application was the best possible solution to our problem of whether students travel around campus efficiently.

Using our weighted factors in the decision matrix, we compiled a list of desired basic features:

• Provide optimized navigation routes indoors and outdoors
• Be free to download and have open-source code for transparency
• Be scalable to add more features

MORT Analysis

User Research

To consider these 5 processes and risks identified by the MORT analysis, our group conducted unmoderated user research.

This graph was derived from a survey that was sent to University of Waterloo students so as to receive responses from an applicable sample size.

We wanted to determine if students even needed to improve their travel time on campus. Based on the user research, 94.1% of the surveyees said they wasted at least 1-5 minutes while traveling on campus. This means most students waste at least a little bit of time getting to a building or class. Those 5 minutes could make or break a student’s ability to take a test or an exam. Especially with Waterloo’s renowned co-op program, many students run back and forth between their residence and classes during interview season. This demonstrates the dire need to close the gap in the students’ knowledge of efficient routes on campus.

We wanted to determine if students knew they were not taking the efficient routes and were simply unaware of the optimized ones. These results show that 94% of surveyees believe that there are better routes on campus that they are unaware of. This further demonstrates that something needs to be implemented to teach students of these routes so they can be appropriately utilized. This also gives WUSA and other clubs better knowledge of the campus so they can properly advocate for needed changes with an educated pitch.

Prototype Overview

MapIt is a navigation app aimed to be used in university campus settings, specifically designed for implementation at the University of Waterloo. MapIt shows students the most efficient path to take between any two points on campus. It addresses the issue of accessibility and wastage of time spent traveling. More features, including but not limited to displaying events, storing schedules, and AR navigation enhance the user experience. Based on our user research, a lot of students, especially first years, wish they had a way to figure out how to get to places around campus in the shortest way possible, and the current plain map is not easy to use for everyone. 

‍

Prototype Usability Testing

The usability testing conducted had its main focus on the features commonly seen as “difficult to use” on navigation apps from feedback received from students. Based on the user research we conducted, over 70% of students waste between 10-15 minutes when going somewhere on campus and 94.1% of students think there’s a more efficient route they could be taking. Traditionally, many navigation apps do not accommodate accessibility needs, and at a place such as a university where a focus is inclusivity, this is hyper important to incorporate. Due to this, the main focuses on usability testing were app efficiency and accessibility.

‍

Our first usability testing was conducted using the pen and paper method- but digitally to accommodate remote interviews. After creating our very first iteration of the navigation app on simple wireframes, we asked students to attempt to use the wireframe to navigate the app. Considering this was a low fidelity prototype, there were no accommodations related to accessibility made, as we asked those students what challenges they commonly face when using these navigation apps, and if they had any changes they would like to make based on trying our wireframes. The main feedback received included points on minimalism (from 60% of test subjects), as students like to have a simple interface. We also got a point on intuitiveness (56% of test subjects), which is something most navigation apps try to have, but we went further into this and made sure to remember to include icons for sections of the app that users may be used to having on other apps, such as a home icon for the home screen. 

For our second iteration, we had a medium fidelity prototype and conducted a focus group to have a deeper discussion on accessibility. This version of the prototype had some features related to intuitiveness, such as the icons, but we had yet to do more user research before including everything for accessibility. The participants in the focus group spoke about how some of their needs are not commonly displayed on every navigation app, such as shortest routes when someone is in a wheelchair, or if somewhere they are going will have ramps. The current iteration did not have a lot of support for wheelchair users, which is something we included and focused on. The discussion also had points about those who are visually challenged, and may need a feature which allows verbal commands on the app. This is a common feature, however most apps do not verbally confirm what the software registered the person to say, which is a feature we noted to include. For other visual difficulties, students also reported wanting to change the font size and the colour theme of the app, to have the most comfortable experience. 

For our third iteration, we created the high fidelity prototype and conducted a walk through. The main focus of this part of our usability testing was efficiency of people using the app. Since we have a version of the app users may click through, we observed the students as they navigated through the app to complete their given task and took note of whether they had any trouble knowing where something is, and if they think the accessibility features we had incorporated are up to their standards. We also observed and timed them on the amount of time it took to go through a workflow, and took feedback on if the workflows felt intuitive. We took all of the feedback we received to further refine the prototype. 90% of users felt satisfied with the accessibility features, and 87% felt the app was intuitive to navigate. This statistic was satisfactory for us to finish up and polish our prototype.

‍

Final Design

Using the data collected from conducting usability testing, we designed our user flow, included our user personas and collected our lo-fi and hi-fi designs: https://www.figma.com/file/PhKNzE0LQjBB0RVJgTwZwb/162-Final-Navigation-Prototype?node-id=0%3A1 .

‍

Our final prototype can be accessed using the link above, and this table below displays all app features. 

Finally, as with all apps, we must consider inclusive design and adhere to proper design principles. We designed Mapit with Google’s Material Design system in mind, and ensured our app was up to WCAG colour standards. Our accessibility panel allows students with vision difficulties to use the app.

‍

As our target audience is very specifically students (and faculty) on UWaterloo’s campus, we thought that an appreciated consideration would be making the app open-source for transparency. We will store aggregated data on a decentralized server with noise injection to ensure students’ privacy. The app will be free to use and not for profit, disincentivizing hackers.

‍