TrailMix

Mixing Pittsburgh’s people and places for an engaged experience on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.

My Role
Guerrilla Researcher
Interaction Designer
Usability Tester
Writer
Business Plan Developer

Team
Jonathan Chan
Kelsey Stroshane
Judith Tucker

Process
Guerrilla Research
Survey Research
Synthesis
Visioning
Wireframing
User Testing
Iterative Design
Interactive Demo
Final Presentation and Report

Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Proto.io
Keynote

Overview

We worked with Friends of the Riverfront, a Pittsburgh non-profit that acts as a steward to Three Rivers Heritage Trail, to help create a communication tool. Friends of the Riverfront identified several organization needs including offering a central location for reporting problems on the trail, communicating safety issues, collecting demographic information, and connecting trail-goers to nearby communities.

Our primary challenge was to make a product that would be useful and appealing to trail-goers and still serve Friends of the Riverfront’s objectives. We created a mobile app, TrailMix, which connects people to the trail and neighboring communities. It also provides easy mechanisms for logging problems and concerns along the trail.

Process

Guerrilla Research

We interviewed bikers, walkers, and runners that we encountered while walking the trail at different times of day.

Survey

In order to understand trail-goers activities, we created a survey that we promoted through Friends of the Riverfront. I shaped the sections on technology usage, which figured prominently in our product development.

Synthesis

We used affinity diagrams to identify trail-goers’ needs and concerns. Safety issues and poor signage dominated their responses. We also found that 6 out of 10 trail-goers bring a smart phone on the trail. This was important to our decision to develop an app.

Visioning

After synthesis I helped shape our focus: mobile technology that provides a service to trail-goers as a way to encourage them to invest in trail’s upkeep. We involved our client in the visioning process. I played a major role in shaping the personas, scenarios, and stakeholder statements that guided our product development.

Wireframing

We went through 12 rounds of wireframes, iterating based on user testing after each round. I worked on TrailMix’s workflows and interactions.

User Testing

I did user testing with walkers and bikers who use the trail and contributed to plans for improving TrailMix.

Interactive Prototype

For our final presentation to the client, I developed a clickable prototype using Keynote. It demonstrates several important features: reporting a problem on the trail, getting trail updates, and finding activities to do on the trail. If you are interested in seeing the prototype, please contact me at sbutler [at] gmail [dot] com.

Final Report and Presentation

We produced a 100-plus page report detailing our process and presented our findings to Friends of the Riverfront. I contributed significant content, including the Recommendations chapter, which details how Friends of the Riverfront can use TrailMix to accomplish future development goals. I also contributed to the app’s branding by naming it and creating a tag line that was used during our presentation. If you are interested in viewing the report, please contact me at sbutler [at] gmail [dot] com.