Movin’ Groovin’
OVERVIEW
Movin’ Groovin’ is an interactive design solution that allows people to have fun while participating in physical activity at parks. Individuals are able to exercise on their own or with a group of friends, unleashing their inner competitiveness.
The intersection between play and our urban environment is an emerging topic, and one that holds a whole host of benefits for our mental health and physical wellbeing. However, the incorporation of play beyond conventional play centric areas has been largely overlooked in the design and planning of our cities. My team and I decided to focus on public parks to identify a problem and create an experience which encourages people to engage, interact and play, rather than just providing a one-way digital information channel.
Role | UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline | Feb 2023 - May 2023
Tools | Figma, Premier Pro, Canva
Team | Ivy Kwan, Kelly Caviedi, Ralph Burke
PROBLEM
Parks are an underutilised space for the community to enhance their physical activity
Despite the numerous benefits and facilities that parks have to offer, many aspects of parks are used by the public to display sedentary behaviour such as sitting, standing and lying instead of actively participating in physical activity.
USER RESEARCH
Research Objective
“We aim to understand what motivates people to engage in physical activities in public parks, as well as investigate what limitations are preventing parks from encouraging visitors to be more active”
Research Questions
What factors influence individuals’ decisions to engage in physical activity?
How does a park’s sense of community affect their social and emotional journey?
What sort of behaviours emerge when people visit the park?
What types of physical activities do visitors prefer?
Research Methods
With such a broad brief, we wanted to gain deeper understanding of the problem so we used triangulation to validate our findings. Our research methods included sending out questionnaires which consisted of closed-ended questions to gather quantitative data, conducting interviews based on questionnaire responses with laddering questions and observing several different public parks to record how visitors behave and interact with their surroundings.
We distributed questionnaires on several social platforms over a period of two weeks. Our aim was to understand the diverse factors and motivations behind park usage.
10 interviews (roughly 20-30 minutes each) were conducted. Our questions were semi-structured, which allowed us to have a flexible framework while covering key topics of interest. The interviews provided valuable insights into the participants' experiences, perceptions, and preferences related to physical activities in public parks.
Lastly, we observed three parks to gather firsthand information about visitor behaviour and interactions within park environments. These observations provided us with contextual understanding and visual data that complemented the survey and interview findings.
DATA SYNTHESIS
The data were synthesised through affinity diagramming, enabling us to visualise the enjoyability and concerns surrounding parks. We used a bottom-up approach, narrowly grouping and labeling each statement based on their similarities. This method facilitated a comprehensive analysis and provided a structured framework to identify patterns, themes, and common threads within the data.
We sorted dozens of statements and eventually formed 9 insights into three focuses: physical health, wellbeing, and social. Of these, we selected the three most pertinent insight that strongly resonated with our problem area and consistently emerged as recurring themes in our user research.
KEY INSIGHTS
REDEFINED BRIEF
Our new design problem aims to improve physical health within communities by creating fun, unique, and structured experiences that help individuals connect through similar objectives.
CONCEPT IDEATION
The brief called for an experience that considered physical, digital and spatial elements. During the ideation phase, we used various approaches to explore multiple concepts such as mind maps (WWWWH) to generate a broad range of ideas and how-to questions to stimulate creative thinking and consider various dimensions of the user experience. We then created storyboards for each concept to show possible solutions.
1. Digital experiences through walking tracks
2. Virtual running rival
3. Point exercise
4. Musical cycleway
DECISION MATRIX
To refine our 4 design concepts, we evaluated them against the Harris Profile Decision Matrix to select the best solution based on a set of criteria that is relevant and responded well to the design brief.
As a team, we decided to combine concept 1 (Digital experiences through walking tracks) and concept 3 (point exercise) as we believed they best responded to the brief and had the strongest features based on the matrix scores. Initially, we thought of having multiple screens along the walking track so each player can play by themselves then come together at the end. However, this was challenging to conceptualise in detail as there were some limitations such as players not being able to complete the game unless all slots were filled throughout. As part of the development process, we gathered feedback from our tutor and design critique sessions and revised the two concepts, adding features we thought we important and removing any unnecessary features. Reflecting back on our brief, we wanted to create a more inclusive social experience by reducing it to one large screen and adding features that would sustain engagement with users.
FEATURES
USER JOURNEY MAP
We constructed a user journey map to provide a visual representation of our concept from beginning to end, illustrating the key touch points and interactions throughout the user’s experience.
VISUAL POSTER OF THE SOLUTION
PROTOTYPE & USER TESTING
MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE OF THE SCREENS
Mid-fidelity prototype demonstration
USER TESTING FEEDBACK
We carefully evaluated our product’s usability by following a user testing protocol which consisted of a think aloud, SUS surveys and an unstructured interview. We explained our design problem, defined our goals and gave them a scenario. We received the following feedback:
Users appreciated the visuals that come with each screen
The liked the ability where you could play with others or by yourself
There were minor design details such as graphic and text size
Instructions on the screen were not clear as users were not sure how they would win the game (whether it was speed or intensity)
As we added the QR code and allow camera access features as a last minute decision, they weren’t implemented quite effectively
HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE OF THE SCREENS
We proceeded to refine the visuals on Figma to ensure a realistic portrayal on the digital screen. We considered various usability heuristics, such as emphasising the visibility of the system status through elements like the standing pad loading animation. We aimed to strike a balance between a minimalistic design approach and maintaining our branding throughout the interface.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
Movin' Groovin' aims to encourage physical activity for park visitors through fun randomised exercises that is shown on a digital screen, ultimately creating playfully unique experiences and fostering an active community.
Watch our experience prototype
RESULTS & TAKEAWAYS
This design project has been a valuable learning experience, providing us with a range of methods and skills in user experience design.
Always gather feedback. We consistently asked for feedback from our tutor, peers and users which helped us refine and improve our design. It was an important step of the design process as feedback can reveal unexpected issues or insights that we may have overlooked during the design process.
Iteration is so important. Our team learnt to iterate after each feedback and user testing session. We explored several concepts such as having multiple screens but our iteration has led us to our final solution with only one screen.
Be creative and have fun. Since we were given such a broad brief, we were able to be creative and create an engaging user experience. From inside the classroom, to our user testing fair, and even filming the experience prototype in public, we all had a lot of fun!
My team and I received a high distinction for this project.