StreetGo

A walkability map to help walkers plan their routes

Teams

Zhiyong Kong    →

My role

Literature research,
Competitive analysis,
Interaction Design,
Visual Design,
Video

Timeline

May - Jun 2021

Tools

Figma,
Principle,
After Effects,
Premiere


The Solution
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I/Peripheral
Information


Users set a character based on their needs and get personalized walking information around them.
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2/Check the walkability environment


StreetGo gives users all-rounded walking information and points of interest according to their characters.
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3/Dive into each subelement


Users can dive into details they want to explore, including street rankings, street views, and rating factors of each subelement.
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4/Receive recommended routes


According to users' characters, StreetGo can recommend the most suitable routes to users.
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5/Customize route


Users can also select their preferred parts with detailed walking information and combine them to form their routes.
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How we got  there

Background

Navigation applications don't always give walkers the most suitable routes

According to WALKABILITY OF CHINESE CITIES, 20% of Chinese people who live in big cities choose to walk to get around. So, If walkers have good walk experiences or not? This question pushes us to move forward.To figure out whether walkers have good walking experiences, we developed a survey through questionnaires among 70 participants and got 3 key findings.

52%

28%

20%
of walkers said the navigation apps usually give them undesirable routes.
of walkers said that they weren't totally familiar with the environment around them.
of walkers said that some routes give them negative impressions.

Exploratory Research

Walkers have multiple preferences and aims, and these can vary by time

We interviewed 7 walkers to find their pain points and look for opportunities. We focused on the 2 questions: #1 why navigation applications can't cater to walkers #2 where are the opportunities that we can improve people's walking experience.
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We discovered that walkers had different considerations to choose routes because they had different preferences such as trees, parks, and even routes. But the navigation applications can only give walker recommended routes according to walking time or distance. To dive deeper, we developed a user journey map to find pain points, as well the opportunities.

Key takeaways:
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01
Walkers have multiple preferences and aims
Walker's preferences can vary by time, but navigation maps only offer a single walker route every time.
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02
Lack of information of the walking environment
Most walkers don't know the walking environment around them.
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Generative Research

How might we use walkability data to facilitate walkers' walking experiences?

1 Data-categorized
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Work with pedestrians to classify their walking bias and analyze the weight each walking preference.
2 Data-collected
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Analyze existing walking navigation and data maps to find the data's opportunities.

1/What elements are walkers always concerned about?

Considering each walker has specific needs, we tried to find the types of walkers and their considerations about the walking environment. According to our literature research, We have summarized 7 types of walkers and 32 walking needs. Next, we divided 32 needs into 6 categories: safe,  efficient, relaxing, convenient, comfortable,  and enjoyable,

What elements are walkers always concerned about?

To validate the rationality of the categories, we invited 10 interviewees to participate in a selecting activity. In this activity, we asked volunteers to play a character and selecting the most relevant two elements according to their character. So, we could select appropriate preferences and the weights of each preference on each character.
Then, we weighted each walkability element↓
Through the research, we found out that:
01
Lack of diverse information on the internet
Walkers can be divided into commuters, shoppers, students, leisure walkers, food walkers, park visitors, and runners.
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02
Hard to find them in the real world
Comfortable, convenient, enjoyable, and efficient are the four elements that all kinds of walkers most care about.

03
Social behavior in the same geographic location
Different types of walkers have different weights for each element.

2/How to collect and use data for walkers?

In this process, we looked through the data processing procedures of walkability map to ensure we can get and process street data in the real world.
In general, the procedures followed 5 fixed processes, We found three important problems3,  4, 5 by analyzing these processes. These problems caused that they couldn't give needed information to every walker, and walkers couldn't fully understand the information in maps.
Through the research, we found out that:
01
We need to simplify the walkability data
Considering too much data in one map, but not all the data is necessary for every walker.
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02
We need to weigh walkability data based on each walkers' preference
Using a single group of weights to calculate the total score, but different walkers have different preferences.
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03
We need to combine walkability data and navigation maps
Compared to navigation maps, data visualization maps can't be used in walkers' daily life.

HOW MIGHT WE
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Ideation

Ideation

Streetgo: Walkers can select a character to get personalized walkability information and a suitable navigation route.

We finally decided to attract users to explore places near Internet-famous attractions through a city exploration game, including three concepts: exploration clues, exploration games, and virtual memories.

Ideation

Concept Ideation

Guided by our three main features, we generated 30 ideas in the ideation stage. :Setting a character, Customized walking information and Customized walking routes.

Ideation

A/B testing: Choose 2D form of data-map

In designing an experience to view this data, we developed 2 narrations and tested them on 10 walkers. We asked for feedback on readability and clarity – short or long? metaphor or realistic? 3D or 2D?
01
Reduce the introduction part
Although the relationships between the characters and the elements are important, the introduction part can't be too long.
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02
Detailized the walker character
Walkers aren't always classified into characters preciously; they need to modify their preferences.
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03
Explain how does each element influence the overall walkability
The interpretation of the relationship between each element and the walkability score is necessary. park visitors, and runners.
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Prototyping and Testing

From Low-Fi to High-Fi...

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1 Low-Fi user flow
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Low-Fi prototype was performed for the 3 main functions of the program
2 Iteration
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In order to enable users to understand the information they need, we adjust character's preferences, Information hierarchy, navigation panel, and color system

Prototying and testing

1/Low-Fi user flow

Through Low-Fi prototype, we explored the 3 main functions' （01.Setting a character/02.Customized walking information/03.Customized walking information）flow of this project.
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▶ Set a Character & walkability environment information
▶  Character's preference and personalized navigation

2/Low-Fi Prototypes

We go through the Mid-Fi phase of the test via Powerpoint. We set up more than 10 tasks to test users. Through the Think aloud method, we find out the obstacles that users encountered in our interface and flow design.‍

Iteration1: Adjust character's preferences

Iteration2: Information hierarchy: the structure of the overall score and sub-scores

Iteration3: Customize the route according to the role

Iteration4: Color matching and removal of redundant information

Final Design

1/Set a character


Users set a character based on their needs and get personalized walking information around them.

2/Check the overall walkability environment and each subelement


StreetGo gives users all-rounded walking information and details according to their characters.

3/Send the customized route to phones


Users can customize their routes and send the routes to their phones.

4/Combine  with city


To find more possibilities to solve the walking problem, we tried to explore more after StreetGo. As a product designed to enhance the walking experience, StreetGo can be combined with the city's transport system, such as bus stops, bike stop sites, and sidewalks.

The Video

Project Takeaways

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More consideration of life scenarios
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At the end of this project, we realized that people rarely plan routes before having a trip. So, in addition to adding mobile devices to help people use and view routes, we also made ports for multiple interface displays such as road signs in the real world to help more people choose the best routes to walk, as well as become more aware of their urban environment.

Next Step

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Explore more user-friendly ways to visualize data
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The current data display interface, despite presenting data information in the form of dots, is still not intuitive and interesting enough to present the data. Inspired by the Cool Walks map - including interesting walking characters (e.g. vampire character used to represent the filtering of routes to avoid any light), we wanted to add some richer character attributes and interface display, such as using animals to represent character attributes, adding realistic map layers, etc.


✦
Maptionnaire: engaging citizens in co-design and guides urban planners
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‍We were inspired by Helsinki's Maptionnaire survey asking how people perceived the current state of walkability in the city center and where it could be developed. We expect our StreetGo can let citizens to upload walking experience data after use, helping city planners receive information about the highlights or unpleasantries of people's walking routes.



Helsinki's survey : The respondents were asked to draw their everyday routes on a map. They could also mark places along their routes that they find unpleasant as well as the highlights of the routes or places that make them stop.

More Projects ↓

CityCamp

An AR city exploration game to help people discover the exciting places nearby

StreetGo

A map to help pedestrians understand the walking environment and plan their travel routes according to their needs

Focus

Mobile APP for increasing the concentration of college students in class

Let's connect!
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newmoonzhang1995@gmail.com
Atlanta, GA, US



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© Luna (Xinyue) Zhang 2023
ScenarioResearchIdeationTestingFinal Design