ProjectProposal-KimberlyLau
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Problem Description
The survival of any customer-dependent facility depends on customer satisfaction. In theme parks, customer satisfaction is dictated by how many attractions guests experience during their stay. Attraction breakdowns can heavily affect this number, and immediate response to all problems is necessary to maintain constant operation.
Problem Context and Forces
Disney theme parks regularly measure the Ridership per Capita (RPC) to monitor how well a park is performing. This is a statistic that tells how many attractions, on average, a guest is going on per day. The parks aim for a RPC of 8.0 and above, because anytime the RPC falls below 8.0, the overall satisfaction numbers from the guests drop significantly. On a regular summer day, attendance at theme parks such as Disneyland can reach 50,000 people or more. This means that to meet a minimum RPC of 8.0, all the park attractions combined must be used at least 400,000 times!
Such high numbers are wonderful for business, but can spell disaster on the attractions. High usage of anything will mean more wear and tear on a product, and therefore more problems. This is reflected by attraction breakdowns, which can cause back ups extending throughout the entire ride and even necessitate complete evacuations. With an average hourly capacity of 1000 riders for most attractions, every breakdown will negatively affect the RPC. Rapid response to any problems to reduce and eliminate these backups quickly is crucial, as guest satisfaction ultimately dictates the success of a park.
The everyday operation of each ride depends on the perfect coordination of many different fields, including computer, software, mechanical, structural, electrical, architectural, audio, and video engineering. As such, when a ride breaks down, it is necessary to immediately call the correct field response agent.
Solution
An attraction breakdown form printed on digital paper that ride operators must fill out with the Anoto pen as soon as a malfunction occurs to immediately contact the proper response team. The form will have a space dedicated to each field necessary for the successful operation of the ride (listed above) that is linked to the computer interface of the respective field agents. The ride operators will complete the form in different spots depending on what the problem is. The digital paper will locate exactly where the notes were made and transmit the messages accordingly to those computers linked to the spot. For instance, if the cause is mechanical, they will write into the mechanical corner of the form what the problem is. Then, because it was written on the mechanical section, the digital paper will send this information directly to the mechanical repairman. This allows the repairman to instantaneously see exactly what the problem was, when it occurred (because of the timestamp), and assess how to best respond. This process will help speed up response on breakdowns and prevent customer satisfaction from falling.
Additionally, the forms will transmit any information to a central computer to monitor each attraction’s daily problems. This eliminates the hassle (and possible lack) of transferring important handwritten information onto a computer. This information can be easily referenced, and ride engineers can use these files to evaluate the deeper causes to prevent the problems altogether. The timestamp helps define the urgency or repetition of a problem.
Target Users
First tier users would be any facility that necessitates constant and rapid maintenance. However, this could be used for recording problems and maintaining buildings or sites anywhere.
Solution Sketch
This solution sketch shows roughly how a form will be created, with different areas of the page linking to different computer interfaces.
