DESIGNING

I am designing for expats; families or individuals that come to a developed country for business. The mother, dad or both have a job. Children will go to school.

WHAT IS THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE COLLECTION?

They are coming to another country to work but they also live here for a amount of time, so they need to have activities to do like; go to the cinema, picknick, shopping, tourism. Or they go into nature where they can; hike, biking, walking, (maybe) climbing, camping, walking nature routes.

WHICH CONTENT ARE YOU ‘INTERFACING’?

I am interfacing how we can develop a system for the users to get a nice experience for the time they are in the other country next to their jobs. They need something that will guide them or show them what kind of options there are to do these activities, they don’t speak the language, they don’t know the city’s so they need some guidance.

WHAT TYPE OF INTERACTION IS FITTING FOR THIS?

There are different kinds of interactions. Apps, websites, tour guides, maps, roads, magazines,
invisible interfaces, activities, flyers, brochures, newspapers, playgrounds.

WHAT TYPE OF MEDIUM IS FITTING FOR THIS?

There are different kinds of interactions. Apps, websites, tour guides, maps, roads, magazines,
invisible interfaces, activities, flyers, brochures, newspapers, playgrounds.

IN GENERAL: WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH THROUGH THE INTERFACE YOU WANT TO DESIGN?

That the expats have a good experience with the country they work in and get to see a lot from
our culture or surroundings like, nature, food, tourism, media, fun. Also activities available for
every age if they come with families.

WHICH VISUAL DESIGN ELEMENTS HAVE YOU ALREADY COLLECTED/DESIGNED THAT CAN BE
USEFUL FOR THIS?

I found the invisible interfaces very interesting; face-id, without touching moving your digital screen with your own individual gestures. Because you see this kind of technology much more these day, and you have to think forward.

Also creating an app would be useful, with a good menu; activities, routes, maps, also every expat that used these routes or can make there own routes (they walked, biked etc.) on the app or give feedback and tips for other expats. And they can show these routes and experience by pictures and/or video’s.

2. Exploring and sketching

What is its medium and the type of interaction?

Inline skating is a very common activity in the Netherlands. This is a nice activity for my user group, because they don't do this often in their daily life and this also allows them to see a lot of Dutch nature. By following nice routes and facilities with the skates it makes it adventurous!
For this activity interacting with a routes app or an analog map would be helpful.

This is a visual sketch of a poster for my usergroup. For users who are looking for routes with inline skates in the Netherlands. The big location icon and the map on the background can give them a visual of the medium already without reading the text.
They can scan the QR code on the left that can lead to a website with routes special for inline skating.

Visual medium and interaction

The best options were the card game and the calendar.

A calendar that you can tear off. Every day there is a new route with an image, information, activities and every day a fun fact whether that route or nature. There is also a QR code on the calendar that leads to the website or a route planner for that route with further description.

You have different questions with multiple choice questions on each card. The questions are about your interests or choices about routes and nature and activities. If you have the most A, B or C you will get a map with different routes with beautiful surroundings and activities.

I am most interested in the calendar because the users can see this every day if you hang it in a certain place.

It is not important to create a new route or activity every day, the usergroup will not have time every day to walk a route or do something active. And if you tear 1 off every day, they have to keep the paper every day or throw it away, which is not convenient It makes more sense to make it a monthly calendar, also focusing on the seasons and what is fun for the users to do at that time.

The QR code can be on it, but it is not necessary to create a separate website for this, which takes a lot of time.