Get Walking

Contextual Inquiry

To kick off the user research phase of our project, our team performed a “Rapid Contextual Inquiry” (as described by Holzblatt et al) over the course of a week and a half; this process consisted of nine user interviews, three interpretation sessions, and creation of an affinity diagram.

Interviews

Because of our discussions with our client, and due to the connections we obtained through our client, Get Downtown, we decided to focus our contextual inquiry interviews on three different, yet overlapping user groups.  We interviewed ‘Employees,’ or people who both live and work in downtown Ann Arbor; we spoke with ‘Employers,’ who were for the most part those people within organizations who manage internal walking programs; and we also spoke with members of the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and Planning Commission.

Many of our users belonged to more than one category; for instance, the many of the DDA members we spoke with were also employers or also live and work downtown.  We interviewed nine total users; seven of these both live and work within 3 miles of downtown Ann Arbor.  Two users are on the DDA board; one is on the planning commission; and two specifically helped manage walking initiatives within their companies.

To begin the interview process, our team first prepared interview questions for each of three different audiences; in practice, we altered our questions to adapt to each interview.  We recruited users through personal connections; by blanketing downtown restaurants, cafes and shops with flyers; and by sending personal e-mails to DDA board members and organization contacts we obtained through Get Downtown.

We conducted our interviews in pairs; one team member took notes while the other interviewed the user.

Interpretation Sessions

Our team conducted three interpretation sessions during our interviewing process. During these sessions we talked through the details of our interviews, clarified points as needed, and produced affinity notes that captured the essence of our interviews and our team insights.

Affinity Diagram

In order to make sense of nearly 300 affinity notes, our team held a day-long affinity diagramming session.  We pushed our mental and physical limits and emerged with a hierarchical sticky note diagram that gave us a much more in-depth understanding of what factors influence peoples’ decision to walk. Download a PDF of our affinity diagram outline.

Below are some photos from our affinity diagramming session:

Our major findings were grouped into five primary categories:

1. Time Concerns
2. Motivation
3. Physical Environment
4. Physical & Emotional Comfort
5. Community & Culture

Time Concerns

Time is a major factor that people take into account when deciding whether or not to walk to a destination.  When walking to work, people want to get there quickly; and they often want to make the best use of their time by multitasking (e.g. talking on the phone, listening to music, etc) while they are en route.  We found that the following time-related factors make people less likely to walk: if they perceive that the walk will take ‘too long,’ if they are running late, if they have an early meeting or other time constraints.

Motivation

What motivates people to walk?  We found that getting exercise and feeling healthy and energized was one motivator.  Not having to pay for parking was another important factor.  Reducing stress was another theme – our users enjoy getting fresh air and natural light, and they appreciate the time to think.  Typical walking program incentives, like getting prizes, tracking progress, getting local discounts, and being on a team were interesting to our users – but they didn’t always motivate them to take part in these programs.

What motivates people to take another form of transportation? Apart from the obvious barriers of time and distance, we found that our users sometimes drove to work if they needed to run an errand during the day; having a car at work allows them to run errands more efficiently.

Physical Environment

Being able to walk through  ‘interesting’ and peaceful areas was important to people; we found that users deliberately varied their walking routes to seek out quiet, pollution-free, and more interesting areas of town.  Our users from  planning and development said that they want to make structural improvements to the downtown area  in order to increase walkability – and this would in turn help downtown businesses.

Physical & Emotional Comfort

This category is related to ‘motivation,’ but we wanted to call it out separately because it was such a strong theme.  We found that physical comfort was very important to people and strongly influenced their decision to walk or not.  Bad weather influenced some people to walk in order to stay warm or avoid a wet bike; but more often it caused people to take another mode of transportation (e.g. take the bus or drive) to protect themselves from the elements.  The physical effects of walking were also a factor; people don’t want to show up to work sweaty, or with ‘frizzy hair.’  Physical safety was also an issue; many users were hesitant to walk at night because they feared for their safety.  Finally, users did not want physical burdens while walking; having to carry a heavy laptop, for example, might influence someone to take another form of transportation.

We found that overall, having the ability to walk to work provided some amount of emotional comfort to users; it was very important to know that they had the option.

Community and Culture

Community and culture have a strong impact on walking behaviors; we heard from our users that walking can be a social or community-based activity.  We also heard generally that people like to participate in communities, both online and in the real world; though they are sometimes overwhelmed by social networking websites, and they all prefer some time away from the internet.  We found that  culture and habit influenced people’s motivation to walk; for example, students who transition into jobs in Ann Arbor tend to keep living downtown and walking everywhere, out of habit.