GR1 - Analysis

Point of View

Arjun is a 40 years old father living in Mumbai, India whose son Raj is a working professional recently moved to San Francisco

• wants to be able to recreate the narratives of his son's stories with immersive visual representation.

General Problem Statement

Parents and relatives living apart want to get a better experience of the stories of their loved ones.

• Experiences are difficult to communicate
  • What is it like to walk around Harvard Square or jong along the Charles river?
  • How does MIT campus look like?
• Traditional forms of communication, like verbal description, images, and videos, fail to fully express what a place is like.

Need-finding (Observations + Interviews)

Phone call with Arjun

Personal Details 40 years old lives in Mumbai, India works in a bank (a clerk ) has never been to US before has travelled to three other countries (Dubai, Singapore, and Kenya)** has only one child (Raj, 25 years old) Raj works for a software company in Banglore Context feels lonely because his son has recently moved to San Francisco they both talk over phone almost every day his son tells him interesting stories (some sample stories below)** his son told him how amazing it was to drive to LA from SFO through Highway 1 along the pacific coast a story about his son's hiking to glacier point (Yesomite) a story about his visit to Google's Mountain View Campus a story about Stanford University's beautiful Palm Drive entrance and the oval Breakdowns/Workarounds  after the phone call, he often goes to web and tries to look up images, videos, etc.. of the places to relate the stories with a visual representation he feels that had he been at the place before, he would be able to 'experience' the stories he often tries to imagine - what it would be like to be driving on Highway 1 along the pacific coast.  Opportunities these breakdowns clearly suggest that it is difficult to communicate experience and there is an opportunity we want Arjun to be able to experience what it is like to be driving on Highway 1 or walking over the crooked street at SFO?

Facetime with another parent

Personal Details

• 47 years old, mother
• lives in Pune, India
• has never been to US before
• has not travelled to any other country
• has her one child studying in US
• lives with her other two children

Context

• prefers to talk over webcam/facetime instead of phone call
• wants to see her son's face while talking
• often asks her son to show the office, dorm through the phone camera 
• interested in seeing the place where her son lives.
• likes video over phone because she feels more closer to her son

Breakdowns/Workarounds 

• often difficult to get sense of things through phone camera
• feels restricted by technology, wants to feel closer to her son

Opportunities

• there is an opportunity to make the communication that gives an experience of being closer.

Phone call with Joy

Personal Details

• 33 years old
• a resident of India
• a prof 
• planning to tour Paris with his wife
• has never been to Paris before
• has travelled to many other countries

Context

• wants to plan his trip
• is taking help of a tour agent
• tour agent has given him a leaflet that has
  • textual description of each trip location
  • beautiful images of various landmarks
  • review and comments from people

Breakdowns/Workarounds 

• he wants to get a better sense of what the trip would be like 
• he wants to take a virtual tour of various places so that he can make a better decision of which all places to go

Opportunities

• the breakdowns clearly suggest that it is difficult to experience 'how a trip is going to look like' in advance and thus there is an opportunity
• we want Joy to be able to experience what different places at Paris are going to be like

Phone Call With "Sara"

Personal Details

• a 22-year-old student
• lived abroad in Spain for 6 months
• her parents are 50-year-old immigrants from South Korea 
• her parents live in the U.S.

Context

• Parents feel concerned about their daughter living abroad.
• Sara wants to show parents that she lives in a safe place.
• Sara wants to show her parents landmarks from her stay so that they can connect together different stories she has told them.

Breakdowns/Workarounds

• Some images of Sara's trip are available on social networking sites (Facebook), however: 
  • most of these aren't relevant to the details Sara's parents are interested in.
  • hard to establish relationships between pictures if you haven't visited the place; no continuity.

Opportunities

• a better way to communicate about the neighborhood

User Groups

Based on our interviews, we have divided it in two broad groups. We will be focussing on #1.

1. People back home
   1. Parents 
   2. Relatives
   3. Friends
   4. Tourists (planning a tour)
2. People living abroad
   1. Visitors
   2. Students 
   3. Professionals
   4. Tour Guides

User Goals

1. Parent, relatives, and friends back home (we would be focussing on the goals related to this user group specifically)
   1. Experience the place where their children/relatives/friends are living
   2. Recreate the narrative of stories with immersive visual representation
2. People Living Abroad:
   1. ability to share experience in a visual way
3. Tourists
   1. experience what the tour is going to look like beforehand
4. Tour Guides
   1. ability to better convey the tour experience to prospective tourists