ProjectProposal-Kangchen
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Problem Description
Have you ever been in a situation where you want to get from point A to point B but don't have a car? Sure there's public transportation that can probably get you there: Bart, ACTransit, MUNI, Amtrak what have you but which line should you take? Where should you get off and then transfer to which line? There's google maps and mapquest that will give you pretty decent step by step instructions on how to get there by car but public transit? Then there are people who can look up all this information online given the computer hardware, internet access and time to plan their route strategically. However, these three things aren't always accessible! Then what would the user do?
Problem Context and Forces
The issue at hand is that public transportation is a handy public service but it's often too troublesome to use it for some people. If the user wants to go from location A to B, s/he will have to look up the detailed address information about a location, go consult a map that has all bus routes charted, compare it with alternate methods of transportation such as BART, check the timetable for when the next ride is and repeat for transfers. Even with this many steps of hassle, some users will still put up with it if they can rapidly lookup these information online. However, for the rest of the population, it's not such an enjoyable experience. Additionally, what if the user is not in an environment where computing hardware and internet access are readily availble? Even if they are, the user might also not be in the position to utilize such technologies. For instance, when they are on a crowded bus, there's simply no room for you to setup a camp and bust out your laptop. Lastly, what if you are not so sure of your current location? It won't be so easy to get to your planned destination now will it!
In summary:
- Difficult and tedious work to plan a trip by public transit.
- Involves various steps and good knowledge of the web to look up information. This is not ideal for the less tech savvy.
- Requires expensive computer equipment and a working wireless internet access to be readily available.
- Space limitation and time constraint: No room to setup a camp to bust out your laptop in a crowded environment. It also takes time to boot up the computer, connect to the net, search for relevant information, and finally organize and them. This will get become very irritating to the user.
- Laptops are somewhat fragile and accidents happen quite often. You probably don't want to be holding onto them as you walk around the block trying to decide which bus to take.
- Unfortunately, we are not good enough to make batteries that can last forever. At some point, your laptop will be useless!
- In the case that the user is lost, it will be much more difficult to get to the originally planned destination.
Target User Group
People who rely on public transportation and car owners who would like to help alleviate the air pollution problem by taking public transit from time to time. Users need not have prior experience or technical background.
Solution
Offer users with the ability to graphically input the origin and destination and receive instructions on which public transit to take and transfer in order to get to the destination of their choice. Since maps of various locations can be pre-printed onto the Anoto paper which offers a high resolution, we can simply print maps of various zoomed in levels to help the user find their current location if they are lost. This stack of preprinted maps will be much more mobile than the laptop. Also, paper has an infinite battery life and are also quite resistent to hard falls. In cases where internet is not an option, feedbacks from the back-end server can send the instructions to the user's cellphones( almost everyone has one of these little devils nowadays ) via text messages. The last but not of least significance is a natural and intuitive interface for users of all technical backgrounds. You don't have to be a computer wiz to know how to circle a location on the map. You also don't need much instructions to realize that you just got a text message containing all the instructions on your cellphone.
Solution Sketch
The high level design goes approximately as follows: User circles the origin(this could be their current location or a location they will be at in the future) and a destination. This data will be transferred to the back-end server via means of the phone company or internet where the data is processed and the coordinates are extracted. These coordinates are then fed to the processing program which gathers route information of various public transits that run in the region between the origin and the destination, the times of each transit and other relevant information, compares the aggregated data using an algorithm and returns the instructions containing which bus to take, the time of the next bus, cost and etc. The information will then make its way to the user's cellphone (or possibly other electronic devices).
