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Let's Begin With A Story! The Shaxplore Story...
Once upon a time, there was an international student new to Toronto and wanted to explore new sites and attraction but suffers from social anxiety and doesn’t feel too comfortable around other people. He thought to himself ”What if there was a tool I could use to easily find somewhere to go and explore based on the type of person I am and what I am comfortable with rather than me searching google for something and missing out on possible options I don’t find”. That would be cool, wouldn’t it?
Problem
Addressing the issue of knowing where you can go that matches your personality, mood and introverted level
How can we help people from ages 20 – 35 with interpersonal social anxiety who don’t feel comfortable around too many people in certain environments and people in new environments find places to explore and visit that would be within their comfort zone and personality but also possibly help them know the type of social anxiety they have?
Goals
Develop a web tool to provide users with useful suggestions of places based on their personalities, mood and aura
The project is a tool that helps users find activities which they can enjoy doing based on who they are and what they are comfortable around. It is going to base suggestions off answers given by users to a mini personality test and survey to help the system understand them better.
The tool is going to try to understand what the users are comfortable around, how introverted or extroverted they are, how they are in crowded areas, if they are outdoor or indoor people, etc.
After collecting all that information, the system is going to analyze the answers and suggest places they can visit based on their answers, also explaining what they could do in those places, where it is located and how to get there, how much it would cost, etc.
Solution
Personalized and engaging web tool, prioritizing user understanding and user satisfaction
Using this tool helps suggest places for users to visit and explore based on their personality, what they enjoy doing, interests, and comfort levels. It will also help users understand their social anxiety better.
Target Audience
This tool is primarily for people who suffer from social anxiety from ages 18-30 and would prefer going to specific types of places that they know would match their comfort levels and type of personality, but I also envision this tool being used other users such as
1. International Students
2. New Immigrants
3. Visitors and Tourists
4. People With Disabilities
Main Findings During Survey
Here are the three (3) main findings I discovered after the survey:
1. Users feel more comfortable when they know about the type of places that they can visit and have an idea on just how comfortable they will be if they visited those places.
2. Users want to learn about new places that they might have skipped through the older method of just searching google to find places to visit.
3. A tool like this can possibly enhance the confidence of people who suffer from social anxiety but would still like to explore certain places.
SMART Goals
The SMART goals I have for this tool include
1. 50% of the target audience make use of the website and are successfully connected to landmarks and attractions they feel comfortable in.
2. More introverts, reserved people and people with social anxiety find activities outdoors that they will enjoy participating in.
3. This tool replaces the traditional way of using web search to try and find activities to do.
UAT Test Results
The findings that were discovered during the survey include:
1. Some users got confused about the “Ratings” word on each of the places on the suggestions list.
2. Users were confused on how to go back from a certain page because there was no button showing “Back” or icon indicating users can go back to the previous page.
3. Users want to be able to filter as much as possible to get more specific results and suggestions.
4. Users want to be able to see their results from a personality test they did on a different day.
Key Points From Research
1. Users feel more comfortable when they know about the type of places that they can visit and have an idea on just how comfortable they will be if they visited those places.
2. Users want to learn new places that they might have skipped through the older method of just searching google to find places to visit.
3. A tool like this can possibly enhance the confidence of people who suffer from social anxiety but would still like to explore certain places.
Mood Board
Getting inspiration from products and websites out there is part of my process and for this project, I got inspiration from a couple products out there for the survey page, general white space usage, mapping, reviews and star rating.
Personas
Explorers come in different forms and some explorers might not be as extroverted as others but they should still be able to do what they love and find places that fit their personalities. Here are 2 personas created for this project. Meet Shelly and Pat
User Journey
The journey a user will go through with a product is important and plays a huge part in the user experience.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
I always start my process out with sketching cause it is easier for me, helps me put the idea I have on paper quicker.
Final Design Iteration
Reflection
Given what we know about the target user behaviour, experience and how that reflects on the business results, we can conclude that users want to be given generic and common suggestions that they can easily discover anywhere else. So, Shaxplore will always have the latest and new locations and landmarks updated into our database. With this, Shaxplore can effectively bring out the true explorer in anyone and everyone willing to take the first step which is to discover.
