Welcome to Information Architecture. Most of your education at Pratt has been about bold visual metaphors, clarity of concept and communicating the ‘big idea’. This course is about organizing the small details, clarity of presentation and communicating the needed information to the person using your design. Even though we are interested in the usability of a design solution, the visual aspects of your designs still need to be beautiful and compelling.

Can You Tell Me How To Get…

Our first assignment is to create materials for NYC walking tours.

Time Out NYC has five different NYC walking tours posted online ( timeoutny.com/cityguide/itineraries/walks.html ). These walking tours will be the content for a theoretical service that we will be designing the user interface for. The goal is to produce materials for a walking tour for tourists. We will designing analog (ie. paper) solutions and then move to digital (mobile phone) solutions.

Problems / Things to Consider

The primary purpose of a walking tour is to see interesting things along the route of the tour. The secondary objective is not to get lost.

Things like cafés and public rest rooms are important for the tourist, and their locations should be accessible to them whenever they are needed — but cafés and public rest rooms should not be the primary focus of the tour.

Big unfolding maps may make a tourist a target for unsavory characters.

Phase One: Analog

Select one of the 5 walking tours and make a non-digital solution. The object is to make something that a person can carry so they can experience the tour. You can make anything, as long as the finished product does not require batteries in order to operate.

The text of the walking tour does not need to used in your solution, but the route of the tour and points of interest do need to be present. You are permitted to use as much or as little of the text as you wish.

After the analog map is complete, everyone will take a classmate’s solution and attempt to use it to experience the walking tour. While using your peer’s map you will fill out a worksheet and take notes which we will discuss in class.

Phase Two: Digital

Cell phone companies in the United States are planning to release location aware services in the next couple years. These services are already available in Japan and Europe. (more info : technologyreview.com/articles/pfeiffer0903.asp — free registration required). It is also possible for a tourist to rent a mobile phone in Europe for use while they are on vacation.

We are going to design walking tours for a US mobile phone company that is planning on offering phone rentals to NYC tourists. The “company” will be renting Nokia 3650 phones ( nokiausa.com/phones/3650 ). These phones have a screen resolution of 176 x 208 pixels. Even though the location services have not been created yet, we are going to assume that the phone will be able to pinpoint a user’s location in NYC to within 50 feet. The phone will not be able to determine the direction that it is facing.

You need to re-think/ re-work your analog walking tour so if works within the confined screen of this cellphone. How does suffer from this transition? How does it benefit? Does the technology help or hinder your design?

Schedule

• 08 September: Assignment given
• 15 September: Individual meetings: sketches / thoughts / ideas on analog map due
• 22 September: Rough Comps of analog map due / Class critique
• 29 September: Final analog map due
• 06 October: Review Usage tests & sketches / thoughts / ideas on digital map due
• 13 October: Comps of digital map due
• 20 October: Near final comps of digital map due
• 27 October: Final digital map due

Grading : Analog Map

1. [A-F] Production
2. [A-F] Usability
3. [A-F] Visual attractiveness
4. [A or F] All Deadlines met

Grading : Digital Map

1. [A-F] Production
2. [A-F] Usability : Maintaining an understanding of where the user is and what they can do
3. [A-F] Usability : Clarity of Interface
4. [A-F] Visual attractiveness
5. [A or F] All Deadlines met

Notes

The analog map should be able to stand on it’s own with the digital version. Likewise the digital map should not need the analog one. Design decisions on the analog map should not be made because of considerations for the digital map.

Assignment :: Information Architecture