UX Design
JigSol
A design concept aimed at creating an inclusive and engaging user experience within Victoria Park, Camperdown. Solar-powered LED lights generate interactive puzzle tiles related to the park’s locations and events. This is accompanied by an app to comply with accessibility standards.
Challenge
Victoria Park, located in Camperdown, Sydney, has a rich history - previously marshland used by Indigenous Australians for teaching hunting and fishing. Today, it offers a mix of facilities for exercise, food, and relaxation, while hosting major annual events like the Mardi Gras Fair Day and Yabun Festival. Despite these offerings, young adults, the park's primary demographic, mainly use it as a transit hub rather than for social engagement. What motivates young adults to engage in social experiences in Victoria Park?
Results
JigSol is a sensory experience for inclusive exploration of Victoria Park. It enriches the user experience through its interactive dimension. By highlighting five specific locations and events within the park through LED puzzle tiles, visitors can discover these unique features and immerse themselves in the rich heritage of Victoria Park.
Overview of Research
Research insights were derived from questionnaire, interview and contextual observation data. This data was analysed using data visualisations and affinity diagramming, and synthesised using personas, empathy mapping and journey mapping.
Our insights surrounded awareness, community, time and curiosity. However, for our refined design problem, we prioritised two - a need for awareness of the park's offerings and curiosity to engage in playful, inclusive experiences.
Below are examples of our analysis and synthesis. Our main takeaways from our questionnaires surrounded the lack of knowledge and interaction with the park's community and offerings, both individually and socially. These insights were further emphasised by our observations of most visitors using the park as a transit hub. Our main takeaways from interviews highlighted the importance of feeling included and engaged in social experiences, the value of time and convenience, and the need for more easily accessible information.
Ideation
From our research insights, our refined design statement was to design an inclusive experience to help facilitate awareness of Victoria Park's offerings and inspire curiosity in young adults.
Our ideation methods included storyboarding, worst possible idea, extreme characters and crazy 8s. To build upon our ideas, we did individual refinement with methods including mind-mapping and sketching.
Our decision matrix led to us merging multiple concepts to form Jigsol, as seen below.
Prototyping & Testing
Below are slides of our low and mid-fidelity prototyping process, as well as usability testing.
We decided to build upon 'Version 2' of our concept for our final prototype - puzzle tiles on the ground rotate clockwise when stepped on, until they turn green when they are in the correct position. When the user sees the completed image, which is related to one of the five main offerings of Victoria Park, a fun fact appears.
Testing was conducted with users using the physical cardboard prototype, followed by verbal feedback and an SUS survey. Our aim was to see how participants would intuitively interact with the prototype. With the puzzle tiles being jumbled, many were confused and tried to interact with their hands. This influenced us to add a visual stimulus of 'stepping feet', as well as an instructional sign for our final prototype.
