The research plan involves studying wayfinding experiences of different user groups on Northeastern's campus. The groups include students, faculty, alumni and others. Researchers will map travel patterns, ask groups for directions, and document interactions through photos and video. They will compare experiences within and between frequent, intermittent, and special needs groups. The deliverables will be interaction maps and an interactive experience presenting perspectives of various users getting around campus. Field research will occur between February 9-16, with work on deliverables from February 19-26 and a final presentation.

1. Research Plan
Alex T, Alex D, Alison, Amanda, Erica
Approach Who? There are many different user groups on Northeastern’s campus, and we
want to make sure we get a diverse sample. That said, we classified two main
user groups of pedestrians based on the amount of time people spend on
campus – frequent users and intermittent users. In each of those two groups,
we identified multiple parties to target. In addition, we identified a “special
interests” category which takes in to account mode of transportation and
impairments.
Frequent Intermittent
Current students Alumni
Faculty Parents
Staff Perspective students
Local community (high use) Student athletes (from other schools)
Maintenance/grounds staff Conference/Event attendees
Friends of current students
Special Interests Passers-by
MBTA traffic
Handicapped Local community (low use)
wheelchair Construction/maintenance workers
crutches
visually impaired
Cyclists
Motorists
Our research methods will be centric to these three groups and we want to
make sure we get an accurate representation of each by selecting participants
as equally distributed as possible between sub categories.
How? Note:
It’ll be paramount in all of the subsequent steps to make sure we’re engaging
different user groups, people that are using different parts of campus and
approaching it from different places.
1. Identify patterns
The first step is finding out where the different groups go. We’ll provide
campus maps to people from the different categories and have them trace on
the map their travel patterns. From this, we’ll be able to tell what places we
should target.

2. How? (cont’d) 2. Pretend we’re lost.
We’ll be on campus (and other campuses as well – other colleges or other
types of campuses like medical complexes) and ask the different groups of
users to give us directions to a specific place. While doing this, we’ll make
observations as to their familiarity with campus, the ease and clarity with
which they can give directions, any frustrations that they have and any
unusual or unique notes they many have (such as shortcuts or “secret”
entrances.) These interactions may be video taped or audio may be recorded
(perhaps secretly).
3. Document people’s interactions.
We’ll use photography and/or video to track the experiences that different
users groups have while interacting with their environment. We’ll get partici-
pants to guide us to different destinations and observe how they get there.
Some of the participants will be familiar with campus already, some will be
only “acquainted” with campus, and others will never have walked through it.
We’ll do this at Northeastern and other campuses as well.
What? We expect a large variance between user groups and we want to document
their interactions. We suspect that some other campuses may do some things
well and observing interactions with other systems may shed some light on
how we can approve our own. We think that our observations will highlight
things that need to change, things that make sense to one group and not
another and things that may be working already. All of these observations will
move us closer to understanding what purpose a new wayfinding system will
need to serve.
Deliverables What? 1. Interaction map(s)
These will illustrate different routes accompanied by photographs and insights
that are representative of a trend or of trouble spots.
2. Interactive experience
Video, audio and photo montage that represents the experience of getting
around campus from the view of different users.

3. Schedule Feb 2-5 Gather maps
Field research 9 Due: In Class:
(#2, 3 from misc. research including maps and Figure out plan for who will capture
above) interviews that will dictate who and exactly what experiences. Divide
where we should focus our efforts. up on campus work and on other
campus work.
12 Check in: In Class:
what progress has been made with discuss what we’ve already
experience gathering? captured, see if there are any
problems with the method, adjust
method if the data collection is not
working.
16 Check in: In Class:
should have all data by now compile and review data, everyone
should think of their own narrative
for next class.
Work on 19 Check in: In Class:
producing review everybody’s narrative for the decide which narrative, or elements
deliverables data of the narratives we want to work
wirth in each piece (photo map and
interactive), split up work
23 Check in: In Class:
what progress has been made on review current progress as whole
work? group, decide if any changes need
to be made, continue work.
26 all work complete – present in class.