Urban Capillary
Project type
Concept Design
Brief
From liminal to memorable space, what does the urban mobility space of the future look like?
The Collective Design Group
Jared Teiger, Kush Vakharia, Hudson Musnicki, Yiwen Zhao
The urban capillary system will breathe life into Atlanta by activating unrecognized space, creating meaningful spaces for urban travelers to seamlessly permeate between modes of transportation and destinations.
Phase I
Research
The Collective started doing initial primary research in the first stretch of the project. After getting a base line for what urban mobility means, we then ventured into learning about potential areas that could be observed and analyzed that is analogous to what we potentially want to pursue.
This is our figma file with the various sections of research that we compiled together. Our process led us to create surveys, observational studies, and to research existing technologies and information relating to urban mobility and the EV sector.
The Collective discovered several insights from our initial findings of research. We compiled the three most relevant insights that connect to the direction of our project. Each insight was backed up by secondary and primary research whether that was a research article or publication. We also went to several locations to do observation studies and ask people a selection of questions. We also held a survey that we sent out to as many people we could reach to gain a broad range of data.
Phase II
Ideation
The Collective sketched 300+ postit thumbnails creating ideas from one of end of the spectrum of being crazy ideas to the other side to more conservative concepts. This wide range of ideation led us to build off of one another. We started with asking ourselves how might we questions to brainstorm ideas that revolved around our key insight findings from the research phase.
After ideating ideas we narrowed our focus on each of our top 5 concepts that we found interesting.
Envisioning an idea for such a large and complex concept required the Collective Design Group to think outside of the box for their idea generating. Using our whole desks space as a canvas we started sketching and compiling our ideas of what we thought an urban ecosystem can be. Taking inspiration from each concept that was flagged for a specific part or overall appearance of the work.
Our concept pitched went into the concept we designed from taking inspiration from current technologies like auto valet systems and bike sharing services that make the experience of coming and going in a city a seamless experience.
Phase III
User Testing
The Collective's ideas needed to be tested. We created two testing situations that our users would find themselves in.
The first user test was their interaction with our auto valet configuration. It helped us test our UI experiences while checking in and out of the auto valet system. It also informed decisions about layouts for the structure of the auto valet system.
The second user test was their interaction with our bike sharing interface. We wanted to test the seamlessness of our idea of having a pass that would act as a mediator between all of the amenities and artifacts a user could interact with at this large urban mobility hub.
While analyzing our user testing we came up with several areas of improvement that tied back into the three insights we found. Each insight from the usability testing phase influenced a design decision for the structure and graphic element of the CAP card system.
Phase IV
Final Deliverables
The CapCard ecosystem would not be complete without its central hub, which we are calling the Urban Capillary.
The CapCard is used at different touch points of your urban adventure, such as parking your vehicle, renting a bike, or getting on a Marta. Users can get a physical card to put in their wallet and it also works natively in your digital wallet.
The system would run on a “day pass” model for new users, but converting to the monthly or yearly subscription for an all-inclusive travel solution would be a no-brainer for most.
Story board
This is a story of our user Bob, who is going through our Urban Capillary to go on a date in midtown. He transitions from car to bike to get into the city faster beating the traffic, and then is able to return to his car seamlessly.
1. A central hub that allows you to reclaim your time through a tightly integrated ecosystem for all you need for traveling in urban spaces.
2. An intuitive and efficient interaction that saves you from the worry of finding a parking in midtown and the security of the car.
3. A fully automated parking garage that handles all the stress you have.
4. A seamless transition from one mode of transportation to the next all within the CapCard Ecosystem.
5. You can get to anywhere you want cheaper, faster, and more convenient.
