Chicago Botanic Garden
User Research
Project Description:
This project seeks to help impromptu and planning visitors seek a more informative,
interactive and simplified visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden. The goal is to provide
visitors with the ability to navigate to the Garden, discover horticulture, flora and
habitats, and reminisce about their experience.
Visitors will be able to locate the most popular exhibits or follow guided tours of the
areas that are of personal interest, receive detailed information and assistance from
Botanic Garden Staff as well as current and previous visitors. here...
Target Users:
1. Planning Visitor - A person that enjoys planning out details of a day trip a few
days prior to the event. They have a specific goal in mind once they get to their
destination.
2. Impromptu Visitor - A person that enjoys being spontaneous and not plan
every detail of a day trip. They spend more time exploring once they arrive at
their destination.
Observations, Insights and Insight Clusters
The team utilized Stormboard to organize our observations. We made their best effort to reach subjects with experience visiting the Chicago Botanic Garden or a similar experience. We would have preferred to observe subjects in action at the Garden but given the time constraints of the project, this was not possible.
We created and asked questions that would engage the subjects in discussion about their thought process when planning a day trip to a similar destination. Two of our subjects had visited the Garden and were able to give direct feedback on how they would go about visiting for a second time.
In order to keep the stormboard legible and easy to follow, the team decided to create color-coded index cards for both the insights and the insight clusters. This helped us stay on task and allowed for other team members to easily update their observations. The assignment description states that a sentence or two should be used to describe any insight and insight cluster. The team chose to keep the cluster wording to a minimum on stormboard and only update the contextual inquiry document with this information.
Conceptual Design
System Concept Statement
What is the system name?
The Garden Planner Chicago Botanic Garden an interactive experience planner for visitors.
Who are the system users?
The Garden Planner will be used by people visiting the Chicago Botanic Garden.
What will the system do?
The Garden Planner will give users three ways to enjoy their experience retrieve garden information, customize an activity, reflect on their trip. The overall system acts as a Travel Tips and Checklist companion. The planner aims to provide easy access to facts about the Garden to reduce the stress of planning and preparation. The system will maximize visitor’s time spent by providing timely alerts and directions to points of interest within the garden. For group tours that have visitors with different needs, the system can adjust to show guest services relevant to a group’s preferences. The system can be utilized as a sharable journal that records the entire Garden visiting experience.
What problem(s) will the system solve?
The system will simplify the experience and reduce frustrations for visitors by providing easily accessible information about the Garden. Presently, information can be difficult to access; static maps do not appropriately represent the size of the Garden or allow visitors to focus on specific parts of the garden, group tours can be costly and time consuming, visitors may be unfamiliar with surrounding suburbs for places to stop and there isn’t a strong online community to share the experience.
What is the design vision and what are the emotional impact goals?
The Garden Planner draws on the experience of visitor’s complicated and often time consuming effort of planning a trip. The goal of the system is simplicity of access to realtime information on paths, directions, amenities, concessions, parking, and open hours. By providing visitors with effortless access to Garden information, visitors can experience a full sensory experience through exercise, communication, and discovery. As a companion guide with a customized itinerary, the user can attend to their individual needs and the needs of their companions. The focus of the system is to bring the visitor to the park, relieve the stress of scheduling, exploring botany, viewing exhibits, and assembling the pieces of their visit into a complementary keepsake of the Garden.
Personas
Alice Helianthus
● Age: 66
● User role(s): Planner
● Education: Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS)
● Employment: Retired Librarian and volunteer Master Gardener with a fixed
income of $40,000.
● Level of computer expertise: Alice is not super tech savvy but comfortable
downloading and using new applications on her smart phone.
Goals/motivations:
● Organize a tour with specific points of interest related to her Master Gardening
Training
● Encourage friends to be physically active
● Provide a stepbystep plan for the trip to the Garden and to be well organized
● Provide accessibility options
● Wants an affordable experience
● Organize everyone to leave on time
● Provide the easiest route for the driver
● Have enough entertainment for the hour long trip
● Find a nearby restaurant for breakfast
● Provide an enjoyable experience for all.
● Able to access bathrooms, resting points
● Enjoy a lunch which accommodates dietary needs
● Learn new gardening techniques
● Share an experience with family and community center
● Share an experience online
● Inspire gardening in the community center
Frustrations and pain points:
● Would like to use a keyboard with an iPad instead of her smartphone.
● Needing to locate the restroom
● Needing access to dietary options
● Having to adjust experience for various accessibility needs
● Feeling disorganized
● Learning new technology without help from family or friends
● Going over budget
Narrative: As part of her Master Gardener program, Alice is volunteering to take a group
from her retirement community to the Chicago Botanic Garden in hopes of inspiring
gardening within the community center. She hopes to provide a wellorganized and
thoughtful tour. All community members enjoy leisurely walks and discovering new
gardening techniques but must allow for plenty of breaks.
“I’m always concerned about knowing where all of the restrooms are located.”
Alice’s retirement community has various considerations when traveling to an event or
experience. When planning a trip, she must be aware of her own physical and dietary
needs as well as the other group members’ needs.
“Because I’m a diabetic and because day trips involve a meal, I need to look at
availability of refreshments to address dietary needs.”
Alice is comfortable using her smartphone to take pictures and read her Facebook News
Feed. She wants to post more content but relies on her adult children to help. Alice likes
technology and is willing to put in the time to learn about new applications but is
intimidated by the constantly changing interfaces. Her daughter will introduce her to new
applications and Alice will then learn on her own how to utilize the application. She is
uncomfortable using a touchscreen due to her inaccuracy in key strokes.
“As a person in my 60s, I’m more capable with standard keyboards. I research
information on my iPad with a keyboard and then use my iPhone when out on a trip.”
Due to her fixed income Alice researches costs ahead of time and doesn’t go anywhere
without knowing the total cost of the experience. The cost of parking is often a deciding
factor in determining the mode of transportation. She often seeks senior discounted parking or free parking days. Alice and her group will be driven to the Garden by a staff
member in the resident passenger van. She will have to consider the cost and location of
parking for the van.
“We don’t go anywhere that doesn’t offer senior discounts”
Chad Cooper
● Age: 31
● User role(s): Impromptu planner
● Education: Bachelor of Business Administration Pursuing Master of Science in
Environmental Informatics
● Employment: Full time Data Analyst with an annual salary of $90,000
● Level of computer expertise: Chad uses his smart phone, Apple Watch, and
GoPro constantly. He is extremely tech savvy and an early adopter of
technology. Chad has an active presence on social media.
Goals/motivations:
● Wants to experience new adventures on his bike
● Wants a flexible experience
● Wants to experience as much as he can during his free time
● Wants a steady supply of power bars and hydration
● Wants to impress his girlfriend and fraternity brothers
Frustrations and pain points:
● Getting lost
● Needing to exhibit more patience
● Having to adjust his expectations due to weather conditions
● Wants to direct the experience
Narrative: Chad is your typical weekend warrior. Between his fulltime job and evening
classes he has little time during the week to socialize and does as much as possible on the weekends. Chad and his new girlfriend are very active and love to bike in and around the city. They are constantly seeking out new adventures. Chad typically doesn’t have time to research his trips, nor does he want to.
“I’ll do anything, but you do the planning!”
He does enough research to get him to the event during open hours of operation.
“It needs to be open, have a place to eat, and have a place to drink.”
Chad places more value on the experience’s content rather than the cost of the event
due to his minimal financial commitments.
“I just want to get out there and see these awesome places. I don’t care what the hell it
costs.”
Since everyone was posting online about the Amorphophalius (the corpse flower)
blossoming, Chad had to be one of the first to smell it.
Wireframe, User Journey and Navigation Map
Prototype and Evaluation
Logistics
After evaluating our options for prototype development software, the team chose to use myBalsamiq instead of Axure. This decision was made primarily due to existing team member familiarity with myBalsamiq and our intention to use a lowfidelity prototype. The Axure tool appeared to be a much more fullfeatured tool but also added a great deal of complexity that we did not feel was a appropriate for this project. We felt that using a simpler tool would allow us to focus our efforts on functionality and user interface without becoming preoccupied with the details of design at this stage in the process. While our application can be used on multiplatforms, we are only focusing on the smartphone application for the two chosen task scenarios. In some cases, we were able to have our subjects test by using the myBalsamiq site on our smartphone to make it more realistic. Attempts were made to use the PDF export from myBalsamiq on a smartphone (iPhone 6), but the links did not work correctly and jumped the user to the wrong screen.
Testing
We conducted a usability test with 8 users representing 2 target user groups: The Planner and The Impromptu user.
Task Scenarios
Planning User
Imagine that you are creating a 90 minute tour of the Chicago Botanic Garden for a group of 8 people with wheelchair accessible paths. Can you show me how you would create, save, and retrieve any tour of your choosing?
Impromptu User
Imagine that you are trying to find the route from your current location to the Corpse Flower exhibit. Along the route, you will need to locate a bike rack, bathroom and a concession. Can you show me how you would find the path between these locations?
Quantitative Results
1) Four out of eight subjects chose ‘Suggested Tours’ rather than ‘Build Your Own Tour’.
2) Subjects were evenly divided among labeling themselves as someone who “likes to plan” and someone who “is more spontaneous”.
3) All eight subjects were able to complete the tasks with one subject who experienced some difficulty. This subject required assistance from the evaluator.
4) One subject found the selfguided tour area with two clicks.
5) Two subjects were not clear on what the ‘Map It’ button represented.
6) Seven out of eight subjects strongly agreed that they were able to start using The Garden Planner without the need to learn anything new.
7) Five out of eight subjects strongly agreed they could remember where to find things in The Garden Planner.
8) Four out of eight subjects strongly agreed that they could easily recover from their mistakes.
9) All eight subjects strongly agreed that the user interface (UI) was consistent and logical.
10) Overall subject satisfaction was rated strongly agreeable.
11) One out of eight strongly disagreed with the statement that they were able to complete the task quickly using The Garden Planner.
12) One out of eight strongly disagreed with the statement that The Garden Planner has all the functions and capabilities related to the task I need to complete.
13) Our sample size of eight subjects completed their tasks with a median time of
13.25 minutes and an average time of 13.12 minutes. The data has a range of 5 to 20 minutes for total time spent completing a task.
14) The table on the following page shows results for minimum, maximum, and mode from the questions in the user experience survey.
15) The median number of errors committed per map scenario task is two, with one subject committing five errors. The average number of errors committed is 2.28.
16) The median number of errors committed per tour scenario task is 2, with two subjects each committed 3 errors. The average number of errors committed is 1.57.
Design Changes
1) We would change the name from ‘Build Your Own Tour’ to ‘Customized Tours’ so that there is less perceived work to be done in creating a tour by using that option instead of ‘Suggested Tours’.
2) Based on the first subject’s experience testing our prototype, we changed the names of the ‘Tour Selections’ from generic (A, B, C) to specific (Bright Gardens, Wonderland Encounter, Lakeside Gardens) for our subsequent testing.
3) The ‘Tour Settings’ page design was made to accommodate myBalsamiq’s functional abilities. We discussed having scroll options for each of the setting options all on the same page. This way the users can have visual access to their settings on one page before generating their own tour.
4) We would have a true back button that allows users to recover quickly from any errors in the Customized Tour process rather than returning directly to the main menu after each error.
5) Based on a subject’s suggestion we would change the directive ‘Save and Recall Information’ on the My Garden page to ‘Save and Retrieve Information’ for more clarity of function.
6) As this was a very minimal lowfidelity prototype, we would add design aspects such as images, font changes, and a color scheme while still retaining the minimalist quality.
7) As suggested by two subjects, a more descriptive label for the ‘Map It’ button such as ‘Get Directions’ would better inform users that the button would create a route to a point of interest.
8) In the prototype we created a checklist for the points of interest due to the limited function of myBalsamiq. In the design phase we would prefer to have the checklist items as a scrollable feature in the interactive map
Process Retrospective
Given more time and resources, our next iteration will have more than one team member present at each evaluation, one to observe and one to facilitate. Consistent presentation is important, hence we would use the same evaluator and secure a single location for ecological validity. In addition, we will evolve and test visual design features in a higher fidelity format, using additional subjects for more quantitative results. To expose some of the limitations of our design, we would build and test on other platforms tablet and/or web. Finally, to have a more representative spectrum of users, we will recruit subjects unknown to the evaluating team who are also potential users of the application. Our intent is to increase diversity within subject’s attributes with regard to age, education, ability, and cultural identity.
One of the challenges we faced is the varied geographic location of the team’s members. We discovered that this is does not always set the ideal condition where our application will be used. We would have preferred to reduce any variability in the test conditions. However, as resources of personnel and time are limited, we learned that the data we gathered is a validation of our original design intent: address the needs of users who plan to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden. This was confirmed by the low median error count of 2 across both (tour and map) task scenarios. Our low fidelity prototype helped disclose interaction problems that can be further reduced with descriptive nomenclature of buttons. Central to the overall prototyping process is to concentrate on the task scenarios, have the user fulfill those tasks, and not mire our design effort in the minutiae of the interface. This user centric approach to interaction and prototype design allowed us to communicate our ideas and establish the UI’s general look and feel.