Reflection on Interaction Prototyping workshop

Xijin Zhong 02/12/2012 Workshop Notes written by Alexandre van Bergen We were assigned to create our own map and draw a tour. We needed to explain the tour by telling stories. If we look at the maps, we can notice that some of us drew a route, with a start and end point, while others were just mentioning different cities. We can also see that the Dutch students added towns, while the Internationals stuck to the already added towns. During the explanation of the map, it was clear that the Dutch had more to say since they have more personal experience with the Netherlands. They would talk about the towns atmosphere, the activities, the buildings and the memories instead of mentioning the touristic attractions. Hearing the stories from the Dutch made others want to visit the towns and get a bit of the same feeling as the Dutch instead of being in the tourist mindset. Kind of the difference between being somewhere and just pass by or experience the moment and enjoy the atmosphere. So we suggested to make two kinds of maps: - Dutch map: it would look like the current prototype but with a zoom on some of the bigger cities, to receive a more in depth/personal tour. At least give enough space for customization. - International map: it would more visual material, the Netherlands is still a bit unknown land, so images of the buildings/fauna and flora (=animals and flowers)/ food would help to inspire and remind the person of the touristic activities. An interesting side story of the session was about Kinderdijk. All the cities on the map made sense but for the Dutch Kinderdijk felt like an outlier, but in the end, it is an attractive touristic town with their row of windmills. The Internationals went there while the Dutch students did not.

My reflection From the workshop, I test my interaction vision (Travllers and locals will exchange something, e.g. information, culture, and their own experience in the interaction.) and initial design concept (Mapcrossing). I got quite a lot of insight and feedback from my group mates. I can find that the idea to draw a personalized map can evoke some interesting stories. Since people like to show off their experiences and to share what they have known about a city or a country with others. A map with simplified city locations and much white space can lead people to use their own experience to tell a special story from their mind. Besides, I do believe travellers can get a lot of fun and valuable information with such a localized map during a trip. Because in the workshop, three international students, Youngin, Amit and I were surprised there are such unknown places in the Netherlands. The discussion evoked by the map can really push the interaction between the tourists and locals. Not only can the tourists find some surprises, two Dutch students, Alexandre and Samuel, also got some unexpected results. The different views about Kinderdijk gave them another point of view about their home country. The workshop provides me an evaluation of my design concept, and I will use the result to improve the design works.