CampusNav
The ultimate app to help you navigate your college campus! Includes unique features like in-building navigation, ability to upload schedule, and navigation directly to classes.
RESEARCH
PREREQUISITE RESEARCH
Finding navigation issues on University of Michigan campus
We are using U of M as a case study for pain points students encounter when trying to find or travel to locations on campus. We sent a survey at random out to the student population.
Response Statistics
50 Responses
18% Freshman, 22% Sophomore, 25%Junior, 35% Senior
20% on-campus, 80% off-campus
How easy or difficult is it for you to navigate U of M campus?
6%
4%
24%
66%
Not Difficult: 66%
Somewhat Difficult: 24%
Very Difficult: 6%
Neutral: 4%
Problem Statement
With bus routes running late, coffee lines too long, and the names of university buildings being abbreviated in the most inconvenient lettering, students already have trouble finding their way around college campuses. And once they finally reach their destination, they're now faced with a maze of hallways, corridors, and rooms, adding more time and stress to their journey. While typical navigation apps offer help with getting to the building, they don’t include maps or directions to navigate within them, which proves difficult when they're trying to find a single room in a maze of hundreds of others. Students need a way to not only find their assigned building, but to find their classroom within buildings as well.
RESEARCH
Finding navigation issues in the MATH (Mason, Angel, Tisch, Haven Hall) building
With our given resources and time, we again narrowed down our research to one of the most used buildings on U of M campus. The MATH building holds classes for students from all majors and years, so our sample was very diverse, and included many types of students.
Method 1: Survey
To lead our future methods of investigation, we began by sending a survey to a randomized set of students who attend U of M about how they feel when navigating the MATH building. The results guided our other two methods.
20% on-campus, 80% off-campus
Response Statistics
27 Responses
16% Freshman, 28% Sophomore, 27% Junior, 29% Senior
6%
12%
35%
47%
What challenges do you face when navigating MATH?
Building Layout: 47%
Finding Specific Rooms: 35%
N/A: 6%
No Challenges: 12%
Not only did the survey confirm how difficult it was for students of all years and majors to navigate the mATH building, but it highlighted certain aspects that made it hard, such as building layout finding rooms.
Method 2: Observation & Interview
To see firsthand how students navigate the MATH building, as well as to identify pain points in navigation, we selected room 1150 for students to find, and a specific entrance for students to navigate from. After they found the room, we interviewed them on their experience.
Average time to find room: 7mins
Notable questions & answers:
Q: “How did you feel when trying to find Room 1150?”
A: “I felt stressed out and confused while trying to find the room I needed.”
A: “Frustrated.”
A: “[I was] overwhelmed, mainly when I trying to find out which building was which and where the room numbers were.”
A: “It was okay, [because I’m more familiar with Mason Hall], but once I was in Angel Hall, I was confused. I feel like Freshman wouldn’t be able to find it.”
Common pain points:
Layout is too confusing
1
Inconsistent signage, room numbers, floor levels, etc. between building sections
2
Lack of maps with room numbers
3
The observation and interview reiterated how difficult it is for students to navigate the MATH building, and gave us more specific information on their emotional state and frustrations with the building, as well as ideas on features they wanted in an app.
Method 3: Card Sorting
Because most students identified navigation apps as their main method of finding buildings, we used card sorting to identify their mental models on what features their way finding methods entail, and what features our solution should have.
Participant 1
Participant 2
Participant 3
We chose various features that already exist on apps, as well as features we might include in apps. We also included building features and some items related to general navigation. We also included a section where participants stated why they sorted the cards in specific groups.
Our main findings were that individuals sorted based on groups of physical and digital maps, or features based on ease of use, which was notable for what to include in our app.
Persona
Our projected average user, and who our app is for based on research
DESIGN GOALS
Based on our research findings, we chose the following 3 design goals to focus on for our app
1
Must be accessible and easy to use
2
Must reduce decision fatigue
3
Must give users a mapping experience tailored to university
GUIDELINES
COLOR PALETTE
NEUTRALS
ACCENTS
V1
V2
V3
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
#4FE49E
109,230,173
53,0,25,10
#4A4299
74,66,153
52,57,0,40
#F8897A
248,137,122
0,45,51,3
#373737
55,55,55
0,0,0,78
#EBEBE9
235,235,233
0,0,1,8
#FFFFFF
255,255,255
0,0,0,0
TYPEFACE
Icons
WALKTHROUGH
Sign In
Loading Page
Class Upload
Downloaded Classes
OUR FEATURES
In-building navigation
Uploading classes from schedule
Interactive building maps with room numbers
Find classes button
Saving locations
All these features are catered to students and their needs, making the trip to class from home to room seamless and intuitive.
Find Classes
Start Journey
Mapping To
Home
Recently Visited
Building Map
Video Walkthrough
