Enschede Promotie approached Creative Technology students with the intention of transforming the tourism experience, and aligning its values with its presentation

After a meeting with the client, our team of 6 students created a proposal for a pervasive game that allowed tourists to explore the city's landmarks in a technology-forward manner.

Our efforts culminated in what we called waypoints, devices that tourists would use to "capture" a landmark, and a general map of the area would show what user had claimed which landmarks.

After our initial conversation with the client, we discovered that this project was part of a larger goal of redefining the city as a culturally rich yet innovative and creative environment.

We conducted an internal storyboarding session where the team highlighted what we thought the problem with the current user flow was.

We discovered that a majority of the team felt friction with the flow of discovering a city. Most used social media, or other platforms to find activities in foreign cities.

The team decided to pursue the creation of a dedicated way of interacting with a city through technology.

After a brainstorming session, we decided on three ideas that would be presented to the client. Among them, our final concept: A capture-the-flag-style game that used what we would later call waypoints. These waypoints would be placed on landmarks, and when users approached them, they could use their mobile devices to interact "claim" that landmark.

Another key feature of the waypoint was that the model would be scalable. Local businesses would also be marked as waypoints, and allowed tourists to also discover their businesses, immersing them into the culture of the city.

Our first, lo-fi prototype was a set of two pieces. One was a technical implementation of what the waypoint could look like. However, as the UX team lead, I prototyped the user's flow through the city with a paper prototype.

In this first instance, users, depicted as colorful paper balls, would traverse a map. Each time they reached a destination, the sign would "light up" in a certain color.

This provided the first piece of valuable feedback: Users appreciate the feeling of reward.

After the success of Prototype 1, the team iterated based on user's and client's feedback, and we created a higher fidelity version of the project.

This version was now a fully distributed system, capable of logging different users with their selected colors

To address user feedback from the first prototype, proper goal definition became a priority for the team. In our second iteration, we tested an area capture display, which showed in real time the waypoint's color so that users felt a sense of competition and reward for capturing chunks of a map.

My responsibility during this period was to conduct user tests and interviews to determine what needed further refinement before the final demonstration.

These user tests demonstrated that our iterative work had translated the first prototype into a fully functional system. Users reported that the prototype felt easy to use, with the average completion time or a trial being just under 10 minutes, compared to the benchmark set by a team member of 8:30 minutes.

In our post-use-evaluation interviews, we found that users created their own rules. One tester attempted to collect as many waypoints as possible in the shortest amount of time, Others enjoyed the exploratory aspects of the game. The game had become accessible and friendlier to any kind of playstyle. It provided the second valuable insight of the project: Implicit game mechanics means you can make your own rules.

Users also reported that our second iteration felt much more rewarding. By adding the overview, they felt a sense of progression and desire to continue playing.