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vcd final presentation-team15

This project hereby ends for us. We had a good time working togetter on this project.

See you!

During our “route” through VCD we tried to prospect all the possibilities within maps with subtle difference. We wanted to keep them simple and focus our attention on the user point of view. The map should grant an efficient usability even for people that are not so keen and prepared about graphics.
We thought that wasn’t so useful to put pictures and 3d models of the buildings and attractions, because it would be, of course, easier for us to understand and to get a geographical reference, but maybe not for visitors.
The map has been decided to be in 3D with a little perspective angle in order to give a wider angle of view. We tried also concave and convex, flipping parts, spherize effects, but they revealed to be just messy and too complicate.
So we got our inspiration from Gps navigation systems, from the so called POI (points of interest), so that people can easily choose between “crowded” areas or more cultural ones. In order to obtain that purpose, we thought of 3d spirals that could give the idea of the amount of attractions in that area. In the final prototype we decided to use cubes so that we could also put an little image reference that could give a little visual help, without being invasive. The logos used are the best known in the common conscience.
Besides that idea, we thought since the beginning that little silhouettes at the beginning of the route, with the right direction, could give a hint about which direction to choose.
For what concerns the route visualization, we tried different solutions with patterns, gradients and popping up colors, but in the end a simple yellow route has showed up to be the clearest. We also found out that the best way of “forcing” people to start a certain route was using an overlapping starting point; in that way the difference is subtle but efficient at the same time.
During the usability tests just one participant chose the wrong route, following an anti-clock wise direction. The remaining elements revealed to be clear and responded to our idea.

(show participant both maps for 10 seconds)
1. Do you see any conspicuous differences between these two maps?
o Yes
o No

(show participant either map P or map K)
2. You are going to visit Delft for shopping and visiting museums. Which route do you choose, route K or P?
o K
o P

More sublte is the use of more ‘natural’ indications:

Having a Chinese teammember is very usefull to get a different approach on certain aspects. Dalei suggested the concept of Yin and Yang to provide a directional hint. Lets hope it can give us some nice fēng shuǐ!

Making it more simplistic we can indicate the following directions:

In our previous final concept the icons where very abstract, maybe a bit to abstract, because you could not really tell what they stand for. The following cubes are more informative:

Dalei, there are two subtle drfferences in the maps wich guide the direction of the routes.

By mart

by margot

by margot

team15-20090520-version01