Indoor GPS: Hypothesis

Across the globe, new students are entering buildings they’ve never been in, with confused and slightly panicked looks on their faces. The pressure builds as they search for the room they’ve been assigned to. Once they get to the door of the building students are on their own to follow poorly drawn maps or decipher a room number list propped in front of the elevator or staircase.

The who: New students in schools with multiple buildings with several floors and hallways full of classrooms
The what: They are unable to easily find the room or exact location they are meant to be in.
The why: Most GPS apps only work in the outdoors in order to communicate with their satellites and inputting most addresses only leads you to the front of the building or the parking lot.

Testing the who: Although the application would be mostly targeted to students in high school and college, this need applies to everyone entering a building they’ve never been in before. From a physician's office in a fully occupied building to a friend’s new apartment, suites or rooms can be difficult to find in a place you’ve never been to.

Testing the what: Unfortunately, most GPS technology functions better in the outdoors because of a better connection to the satellites that send it information, but as technology improves it can give us more accurate locations. Although many people do prefer following a paper map because it’s simplicity, if we were to use simply a 3D version of the map in the application it would give the map lovers a better visual.

Testing the why: Some people believe the confusion is part of the experience of going to a new school, others still feel that having to find a room on your own is the most effective way of actually learning and remembering how to arrive there in the future. The why I described doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone because sometimes all they need is to arrive to the building or the address they were given includes the apartment number. However, only including the apartment or suite number doesn’t necessarily help in a complex or school with several buildings.

Interviews:

1. Freshman in College

What has been your biggest challenge in getting around campus?

Finding my classes and making sure I get to them on time.

What’s so difficult about finding classes?

There are so many floors and classrooms in a building, and oftentimes the directions

people give me aren’t enough.

Do you think a GPS app would help?

I think it would, I already use GPS to get TO the building. So an app that would help me

get all the way to class would really make it full circle and allow me to get there on time.

It’s exactly what I need

Do you think anyone else would benefit from this?

I think if you’re a student this would be a necessity.

2. Family visiting their daughter

Is this the first time you’ve visited our campus?

No, we came a couple months ago for Preview.

Did you have trouble getting around?

That was our biggest issue since our daughter didn’t know campus yet either. While we

were with Preview Staff we were taken care of, but when we were separated in the Reitz

we couldn’t do much but wait around for fear of getting lost. We even went to the wrong

floor looking for one of the information sessions.

Do you think a GPS app would help?

It’s definitely something faculty, staff, and students should take into serious

consideration. Not everyone has the time to take the full tour or wander around looking

for what they want to see. We wanted to help our daughter find her classes before her

first day, but we ended up walking around campus, lost, instead.

Do you think anyone else would benefit from this?

Anyone who plans to attend or already attends would benefit. We asked another student

for directions and they seemed just as confused as we were.

3. A couple who recently moved back to the U.S.

How does it feel being back in the U.S.?

We definitely missed it, but since it’s been a few years since we’ve been here there are a

lot of new buildings and a lot of the ones we used to frequent are different or we’ve just

forgotten for the most part.

Have you gotten lost anywhere lately?

Most definitely. We couldn’t even find our favorite store in the mall, which we later found

out was closed permanently. We also drove to our doctor’s office for a check-up and he

had moved his office to another floor in the building because he expanded and now had

several and we had to ask several people until we found another one of his patients who

was able to help.

Do you think a GPS app would help?

It honestly would be a lifesaver, it would save us the trouble of searching for every single

place we have to go to and/or having to ask people until someone has the answer we’re

looking for.

4. A shopper at a new mall

How long have you been shopping here?

This is the second time I’ve come here, the first was its grand opening. It’s so big and

there were so many people that I couldn’t even experience the whole mall, but all the

staff was very helpful with directions that day. Today I literally can’t find anything because

there are so many stores and without the big decorations and kiosks they had the entire

the mall looks different.

Do you think a GPS app would help?

Absolutely, I do feel that I will eventually get the hang of this, but for now, it would be

awesome to have a handheld assistant that tells me where to go.

Do you think anyone else would benefit from this?

Anybody coming to the mall or another new place could definitely benefit from this. This

isn’t the only place I get lost so I would definitely use it everywhere.

5. Freshman in high school

Do you find it easy or difficult to navigate around your school?

I’ll admit it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to be, but also not as difficult as others made it

out to be. This campus is a lot bigger than my middle school and has a lot of rooms that

even the seniors don’t know how to get to.

What is the most difficult part of navigating?

Finding rooms for club meetings during lunch or after school or finding a classroom I

don’t have a class in to deliver something to a teacher. Getting to classes is easy

because you just follow the masses or I follow my friends that have the same classes.

Do you think a GPS app would help?

I think it could help, but I don’t think it would be 100% necessary. It’s easy enough to get

the hang of where things are here since I am here every single day for several hours, but

I could understand why people would use it during orientation or on the first few days.

Do you think anyone else would benefit from this?

It’s definitely a good idea, and it would probably be more useful in other settings. I do

think that it would be super useful when parents come to visit so that the students don’t

have to be constant tour guides for their parents.

What I’ve learned is that it can definitely be used for more than just schoolchildren, and it would be utilized by all types of people. An app like this has little to no downside because its main purpose is to help its users. Although people who are naturally adept at following directions may not need this app, it is true that when in a pinch this would be incredibly helpful.