CONCEPT PROPOSAL
MILESTONE 1
PROJECT SCOPING & INITIAL BRAINSTORM
SCOPE DEFINITION
For this project, we are targeting solo travelers who have huge need in safe navigation and recommendations as they explore cities by themselves. Most of them have limited budgets and information about which area of the city is fairly not safe as locals do. They want to explore the city freely without always concerning about safety issue and enjoy the excitement and spontaneity along instead of anxiety. Our concept is to help them have a safer and delightful trip through the city via pervasive devices without intruding their adventures.
MOTIVATION & PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS
With the shared interest of exploring cities around the world among group members, we figured that safety and planning issue are the most frustrating part of being a solo traveler, especially for those who have limited budgets and information.
(solo traveler picture)
With some prior knowledge and secondary data collected, we wanted to dig further via interviews as preliminary research. We interviewed 6 solo travelers about their experience in traveling alone. We asked their motivation, their needs, and their challenges and their ideal trips. Several findings are:
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The top three important things for solo travelers
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Safety -- “I heard about that there are some unsafe districts, but I don’t know where exactly they are.” Google Maps does not show this type of information.
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Comfortness
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Affordability
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Things solo travelers enjoy the most are
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Plenty of time to ponder about life
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Experience different cultures and lifestyles
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Meet and talk to random people with spontaneity
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They have the desire to blend into the surroundings and fluent navigation.
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Some people feel they are safer when they behave/dress like locals instead of tourists.Thus, they wear casual clothes, try not to carry pricy stuff, try not to walk intermittently.
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Two moments are especially contradictory to pretending as locals: taking pictures and checking Google Maps on the phone frequently
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Navigating via Google maps is not easy while biking
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Some feel it makes it easier to experience the vibes of the city freely: to interact with locals and to experience the local lifestyle
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The moment that they have to carry luggage around is one the most frustrating parts throughout the trip.
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Most people mentioned about the bad experience from arriving at the airport or train station to their hostels or hotels via public transportation.
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First is that carrying around luggage makes the simple transportation much harder and makes it easier to be targeted by robbers and any types of offenders.
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The uneasiness and anxiety multiply as they are not familiar with the complicated transportation system including subways and buses which sometimes aren’t compatible.
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Last but not the least, it’s hard to find someone to watch their luggages when going to the restroom.
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Some people visit coffee shops in every city for several reasons.
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Feel the vibe of the city.
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Take a short rest and energize them
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Share posts on social media about their feelings, pictures or anything special. Instead of posting while walking or commuting in their daily life, they tend to not be distracted by it while traveling alone due to safety concerns.
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Deposit their luggages in chain coffee shops such as Starbucks
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Locals make them feel safe while dark streets, the smell of weeds and homeless people make them feel unsafe.
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Safe: light, many locals in the area, main streets, stores, family’s picture,
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Unsafe: narrow alleys, weeds, homeless people, restrooms, dark streets
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Solo travelers tend to be more cautious to avoid danger or act differently when feeling unsafe.
- Check belongings very frequently
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Observe other passengers’ behaviors
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Pay more attention to the surroundings while talking or focusing on a task. Try not to be distracted easily.
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Pretend to speak on the phone, giving others a sense that they are connected to someone and could ask help anytime
- Check belongings very frequently
Other concerns including losing internet access, language barriers, and emergency situations such as sickness or couldn’t catch up the flight, etc
One key special characteristics for this population is that they desire the freedom to explore with appropriate amount of information when needed. That is to say, they treasure the moment not disturbed by anything and do not appreciate excessive information and intrusion.
We figured that a pervasive design could be a very powerful tool for this population since they have concerns about using phones frequently when walking on the street which makes them vulnerable to unsafe situations and they don’t want to be bombarded with information all the time. Our concept could make their trip more delightful and flexible
Interviews using Participatory Design Toolkit
IDEATION PROCESS
After we identified our target audience as solo travelers, each team member conducted interviews about solo trip experiences. During the interview, we encouraged the interviewees to think about their ideal trip experiences. Then we brought interview findings and design ideas from our interviewees to our meeting. After discussing each member’s findings, we defined the project scope based on the common challenges across the interviewees. We started to sketch different concept ideas individually. When we brainstormed the concept ideas, we used the metrics method, which we practiced during the lecture. We put types of sensors in the columns and put objects in the rows to brainstorm about the ubicomp object, which will eliminate a solo traveler’s challenge. We then reviewed each idea, redefined our scope, and narrowed down to the three ideas based on our updated scope.
Brainstorming based on Matrix of Sensors and Artifacts
CONCEPT PROPOSALS
Concept 1: Smart Lock
When solo-travelers want to go restroom, it’s difficult for them to find someone to watch their luggages, or they do not know if they should trust others. The smart lock can detect your position. If you’re not besides the luggage and someone try to move your luggage too far away, the alarm will ring and warn the potential thieves stopping to move it. If the luggage is stolen, travelers can find it by GPS. With the alarm, witness can remember the thieves easily. With the GPS, police officers can better support travellers to get the luggage back.
Concept 2: A local friend on my wrist and ears (smart wrist)
Our second concept aims to provide worry-free experience in terms of safety and local information including different system concerns. Users will wear a smart bracelet and earphones during their trip. These two objects will act as the user’s safeguard as giving an alert when a user is approaching unsafe district and when is crowded with people in order to protect their belongings from a thief. This safety feature is based on GPS and thermal inputs (Thermal sensor is to detect the number of crowds). Two objects also act like a traveler's local friend which will tell user details of local information. We imagine the ideal world that there are beacons everywhere, thus users can get a local information and it will show on the display of the bracelet. This information can be anything that a user wants to see such as local cafe recommendation, and the use of public transportation instruction.
Concept 3: Smart Water Bottle
Our third concept aims to tackle more of the fun and spontaneous event that single travelers want to gain out of their trip. We tried to incorporate context-aware design concepts with this smart water bottle. This water bottle will be able to connect with internet and pull out real-time temperature the traveler is in, and either heat up or cool down the water it is containing to match the environment. At the bottom of the bottle, there will also be a weight sensor, so that if the water it’s containing gets to a relatively low range, the small LED screen will show a simple route to the closest cafe.