Assignment 5: Visitor experience mapping

Bring together spatial, temporal and thematic thinking

Note: we will be doing this assignment in stages. Submitting and presenting work in progress is essential.

A "user journey" or "customer journey" map is a way to understand and visualize a process.

Examples of UX mapping
None of these four types of maps are a perfect fit for planning interpretation, although all have some relevance to the process - you can review these as backgound, but our process will be different.

Despite their name, the "maps" in User Experience mapping are generally temporal, rather than spatial - that is, they show a process over time, not space.

Heritage interpretation - especially the kind that we see in environments like parks, trails and urban areas, generally has a strong spatial component - things happen not just at a point in time, or place in a sequence, but at a particular physical location.

Visitor Experience (VE) mapping can be seem as type of UX map, but one that has a strong spatial component.

Your task is to select a site - check in with me for approval first. Parks, trails, nature areas, heritage districts of cites all work well. If, because of COVID or your location, this is a problem, let me know, and we can find a solution.

Then, you will prepare documentation and gather information in two streams - spatial and topical - related to the visitor experience of that site.

Spatial documentation is maps, diagrams, aerial photos, etc.

Topical documentation refers to specific features.

Assignment Phase 1

1) Create a clear map (site plan) for your site.

Resources for this include Google Maps (and satellite view) published maps, and data from government web sites. IMPORTANT: Share resources, techniques, etc with the class in the #assignments Slack channel.

Think in layers - for example, you may use aerial photography for reference, and then sketch a map on top of that for clarity of presentation.

On your site plan, note the zones or locations where different VE functions happen. Use Falk's visitor models to help empathize with users, and be methodical.

2) Create an inventory of the user experience elements in the site - touch-points, or topics. These can be text, photographs video or other.

You will not need to locate these on your plan, but make sure you know the location for all of them. (Your camera's GPS is a very useful tool for keeping track of where you took photos.)

Organize your data based on Stephanie Weaver's steps. Assign categories based on Weaver's VE steps to each touchpoint.

Creating Great User Experiences (chapter)

Click "Preview PDF" to access the document. Note - Weaver lists 8 steps; we will only use seven, and skip "7: Common sense"

For the Invitation and Finale steps, there are not "things" to document - you will need to create a written or visual record of things and ideas, desires and memories.

You will later organize this information, but for now cast a wide net. Think of all the VE elements that affect someone's perception of the site - from the sublime to the mundane.

Submission: Submit your site plan, and a sample (a few touchpoints per zone) of your findings for initial discussion. We will build on this in the upcoming classes.

Due: 6PM, Sunday Feb 13. Upload in PDF format to Brightspace.

Name the file: YOURLASTNAME_DSGN4101_Assign5a.PDF