Seminar 1 - Josefine Möller

The task of this project is to find an area of improvement for the travel experience when going from point A to point B. 

Right now we are at the stage where we haven’t yet decided what we are going to create. We have all agreed that the best way for us to move forward is to start with doing a field study. A field study in this case would mean that we choose and try out a specific route with a certain transportation. For example we all take the bus from A to B a couple of times to collect as much data as possible about that trip.

It is then important that we gather all of our data to find out where there are areas that need to be improved. Hopefully we even find more than one way to move towards and thereby get to decide which one we prefer the most.

When we have decided what path we want our project to take we need to focus on how we are going to collect even more data. Should we do interviews, questionnaires or more observations? A mixture of several methods would give us both quantitative and qualitative data, which is preferable. 

We also need to specify what requirements we have for our product. Do we want our product to work as a guidance for the traveller or as something that entertains him or her on the go? Maybe we even want a mixture of both? When we’ve gotten to this conclusion it is also good to think about more specific functional requirements like what features the product need to have. 

An other important task for us in this stage is to define our target group. This might be good to decide before the field study so that we know what to look for. But it can also be good to keep an open mind during an observation in case something unexpected happens. I think finding out user characteristics is critical when shaping the product. If we for example decide to design a product for either retirees or children we will probably have two completely different results in the end. Therefore it is important we decide a target group as soon as possible so that we know what to focus on when moving forward.