Mariager Fjord – App

Design Process:

The initial process can be divided into 3 categories:
Field trip
Customer Journey
Design Theater

Field trip

The field trip included a visit to Fyrkat, walking in the terrain around the fjord, talking with different people engaged in promoting the area, ether in a professional sense or voluntary, fueled by a love for the area and a wish to share this with others. And lastly, while the field trip was conducted outside the busy sommer turist season, the group did manage to interview a few local users of the area.

While different interviews and presentations gave different pictures of the userbase of the area, experiencing it first hand gave a good understanding of what the area has to offer.

However, later communications with the requestor resulted in a change of target demographic, from being aimed at the broader userbase to attempting to attract younger people.

While this on one hand rendered large portions of early work with techniques, such as customer journey design, no longer useful, it did open up for greater consideration for more digital and social networking solutions.

Besides the first hand impressions of the area, the field trip also supplied the group with a large body of images and video clips. Something that quickly became very useful for video sketching, as the group did not have the travel budget or the time to make such sketches on location or in a similar environment.

Customer Journey

In order to understand customer needs, a series of imaginary users was created, based on the different information gathered on the field trip. While different promoters of the area seemed to have different ideas of the userbase and no hard fact demographics and visitor statistics where available, a general sense of user groups and what interrest they had in the area was established. As the area has a wide appeal, this resulted in quite a large body of work and many different imaginary users.

Following this the group attempted to identify what the different user groups desired and needed in order to provide them with a fulfilling visit to Mariager Fjord. But due to the widely different users and needs, it became very clear a “One-size-fits-all” solution was out of the question. Following this, and reflecting on some of the early wishes articulated by the requestor, attempts where made to identify what areas of solutions would include as large a portion of the userbase, while also inducing a wish to explore more of the nature around the fjord by these visitors.

More work went into coming up with ideas and concepts (combined with Design Theater, see next section), but after another meeting with the requestors and trying to explain how broad a solution would have to be, they decided to narrow the scope of the case, in order to open up for a wider array of digital design choices. This however also made much of the Costumer Journey effort useless.

Design Theater

Representing ideas and opportunities with toys, as a physical metaphor, it helps give an overview of the situation

While the group began the workshop with a bit of skepticism towards the method, and what at first seemed random and a bit like child’s play, turned into a sort of unconscious hive-mind as things where added. Without communicating directly, the sandbox landscape was slowly and surely turned into themed areas, each representing something Mariager Fjord has to offer and representing visitor behaviour.

The main themes of the sandbox seemed to be the waters of the fjord, the diverse nature, the rich history and people, who was unaware of it all. The area at first was described as history was in the follow-up discussion expanded to cover storytelling as well, in the sense that it was not only about communicating the history of the area, but also offering people help to create and share their own stories.

The Object Theater circled around the fjord and how the whole area offered a plethora of different story narratives. Such as viking history, wildlife, nature/environment or the opportunity for people to create their own story.

Video Sketches:

Sharable Places
Social Currency
Way of oak
Thoughts of Friends

Sharable Places

The concepts purpose is to get Mariagerfjord more visible to young people by using social media and get Mariagerfjordguiden.dk integrated. This is done by young people themselves. The youngsters tell about their experiences through social media such as f.eks.instagram, twitter and facebook.

Mariagerfjordguiden.dk will be the gathering point of all experiences and upcoming events. So when somebody upload text or image on social media, through a direct connection one can watch the event live braodcastet from Mariagerfjord. In addition to this, the check-in feature on facebook, will create a virtual map for all destinations, so other people can easily find some of the golden locations in Mariagerfjord.

Social Currency

The concept is to offer additional value at selected spots in exchange for social media exposure.

By offering something, like the possibility of charging a phone or the option of playing music on a stereo, it is the hope that a younger demographic will find the different areas ether more attractive, convenient or useful, be it for activities or socializing. And in order to “pay” for these additions, they will have to give something to the area is desires: More exposure and a raised awareness of the possibilities offered around Mariager Fjord.

Way of Oak

The touristic story path leads from the hills, through the harbour to Fyrkat. At particular spots the digital info panels present actual topic (nature, transformation of trees, vikings…), while all themes are connected into one story. There are several specialized area all around the path and if some group of people follows the info and requirements what to do, at the end they’ll have a proper viking party with evaluation of the races and winners.

Thought of Friends

The concept involves the social aspect of interactive digital media, and how to implement these into selected nature areas. The basic idea is to have an app or (smartphone optimized) webpage that serves as a “planner” for social gatherings. As shown in the concept video, the individual can set up these meetings and gatherings easily, through a map service with specified optimal areas for the meet-up. By choosing an area, you will be forwarded to the next step: the integration of the social media Facebook. The app or website will connect to the user’s Facebook profile. From there the user will get a list of his/her friends and the option to “check” mark the wanted members, then pressing the “next” arrow or button. This will send out a message to the invited parties (through Facebook) to meet at the specific location, at a specified time and date. The location will be easily accessible through Marriager Fjords webpage (for example by integrating google maps or similar map services).
Another feature that could be added to this concept is the option to use your GPS for direction. This option might benefit other target groups such as tourists or other locals.