Mall Indoor Navigation

The scope of this project was to improve the indoor navigation experience inside malls. This was part of a learning course developed by S.I.I.T.B which took place in autumn of 2019

Process

Team

Cerasela Radu

Ioana Franciuc

Gabriel Stoica

Mircea Dan

Approach

Strategy

Goals

Learn to practice the UX process

Provide a better user navigation inside the AFI Cotroceni mall

Improve the existing digital tablet solution inside AFI Cotroceni mall

Find other ways in which the navigation experience is enhanced for the user

Discovery

Hypothesis

Preparations:

Prepared a list of questions together
Went to AFI mall but also to other malls and shopping centers

Types of Questions:

How do you orientate yourself around the mall?
What indications do you expect to find?
Did you find what you were looking for?
How often do you come to this mall? Or other malls in general?
Do you use mobile apps for orientation?

Description of workflow:

Interviews were held in pairs of two, formed by members of our team(4) assigned for the research phase of this project.
Since we did not have a proper way to conduct the interviews inside the mall we resorted to guerilla type of interviewing.
We posted around the interactive tablet and we asked people after carefully observing them.
By doing this we also managed to do field study on users by first observing their behaviour and by asking questions afterwards.
Noted down answers, observations, etc.
Interviewed people during workdays (in the evenings) and also on weekends (after or around lunch hours)

User interviews transcripts

Field Study

Observations from people using the current tablet solution:

Filtering (instead of searching) occurs on the far right on the categories – which is hard to be noticed by the users
‘X’ button(after searching some text) is not frequently used to clear – instead backspace button is pressed repeatedly
‘GO’ button to generate a route remains unnoticed by many people
The action to double tap on a location(or on the arrow next to it) which also generates a route was noticed only by accident

Survey

The scope was to get a general idea of the people that frequent the mall, their purpose, how often and when they visit, by what means they arrive, how do they navigate the premises and what are their main complaints.

Age:

48% – 25-35
35% – 35-45
18% – 18-25
13% – 45+

Gender:

74% Women
26% Men

Salary:

44% 2000-4000
40% 4000-8000
13% Prefer not to answer
4% <2000

Arrive to the mall by:

61% Public transportation
61% Personal car personala
9% Walking

Frequency of visit:

52% Monthly
22% Anual
13% Weekly
4% Other intervals

Days of the week:

73% Weekend
40% Workdays

Time of day:

61% In the evening
57% At lunch time

Time spent:

44% 2-3 hours
35% 1-2 hours
13% <1 hour
9% 3-4 hours

Main activities:

100% Shopping
61% Eating
48% Watching a movie
13% Socialize
9% Have fun

How they navigate:

70% Exploring
30% Using the internet
22% Asking at the info point
17% Using the tablet
9% Asking around

Ease of access (from 5p scale very difficult/difficult/normal/easy/very easy) – noted only the most relevant

Toilets: 39% difficult; 43% normal
Parking lots: 23% difficult; 39% normal
Places to eat: 17% difficult; 43% normal
Desired shops: 65% normal
Mall entrance: 57% normal
Places to have fun: 47% normal

Suggestions from users(from the open ended question):

Improvements on signs, clear pointers/markings
More info points
A better interior signalization towards the parking lots

Summary:

Around 83% of visitors range between 25 and 45 years old.
Most are women and have medium or higher income
People visit first for shopping, with second for eating and third for watching a movie.
On a visit, almost 80% spend at least one hour, with 44% spending between 2 and 3 hours.
Most find their way by exploring and if they can’t find something they use the internet, ask at the info point or use the tablet and only then, as a last option, ask around.

Pain Points:

Toilets are the least accessible places around the mall with parking coming a close second.
Eating areas are also not very easily accessible, with 17% of people having a hard time around the restaurants.
Around 50-60% of people find access to shops, mall entrances and fun activity spots ‘normal’ which may also hide some frustrations and can be improved.

Survey and data results

Desk Research

Summary from internet findings

Number of visitors down but sales conversions are up
Malls need to address solutions for different generations and needs
A lot of people come to the mall for socializing, entertainment and great experiences for which are willing to spend more money when sharing them with friends
People that come to the mall are more interested to eat there also

Current solutions

Graphic Tablet inside the Mall

Pros:

Available for most people
Ready for use – almost no technical impediments for using it – like download requirement, connection to the internet and
Already existing mental models for most young people
Routing option

Cons and pain points from testing the tablet:

Tablet is present only in some parts of the mall (2 around the main entrances and 1 on the first floor).
The tablet is big and placed at an angle making it easy to spot and address for adults but harder for small kids.
Responsiveness is not ideal since it appears to be have a resistive screen.
Software app present on the tablet appears to be a scaled up version of a software designed for a smaller tablet – not adapted for the screen size
Search bar also displayed below the keyboard
Map is fixed, cannot be rotated

iOS and Android apps