Archive for ‘Interview Summaries (P4)’

The hardest part was coming up with relevant questions that were easily understood by the interviewee.  But most questions just sparked a dialogue that lead to many great ideas. No two interviews gave the same ideas or responses.  One wanted a way to start an event with tasks around Abilene that people can help him with, and perhaps a bartering system on it.  Jordan wanted a way to find things near him that he didnt know about, with closing time and pricing for things they offer.  Some strange ideas were having a newsletter delivered to people to let them know whats new and happening in Abilene, while another wanted to be able to call a person and have a conversation about the information he needed/wanted, while another wanted an internet site to access this information.  Girls typically seemed more interested in the app, while guys were kind of indifferent.  Most if not all wanted the app to be free. And having multiple ways to view the app seemed to be a necessity.  Overall, the interviews went well and offered many new ideas.

For my interviews I wanted to get a wide variety of people, so I made sure to get different age groups and genders. I talked to people from high school age to almost retired people. Every person I interviewed said that they would use a program similar to my project in a church. Nearly every person interviewed said they had attended or at least visited a megachurch and understood how difficult it can be to get involved. The question I got the most back and forth answer on was “Would you prefer to contact the leader of the ministry, or be contacted by the leader?” It was really 50/50 and I think that’s just based on someone’s personality type. This made me realize that the end page where the member gets information on how to get involved that they should maybe have a checkbox that says “Have the leader contact me.” Another thing I asked, just for curiosity’s sake, is would you be offended if the church used technology to help members initially get involved. I was a bit surprised to see that no one (even my older crowd) found this offensive as long as they were able to interact with a real person as the end result. I think this interview process, though small, was very helpful and would be interesting to present to churches in the future. The final thing I will mention is that I spoke with some people who are not active and regular church goers and these people even said that they would be willing to use a program like this to see how they could get involved in the church. I thought that was an awesome thought!

The best suggestions I got are:

Option to route around difficult sections while using “find fastest route back to parking lot”

Interactivity with ride tracking apps

List how fast trails generally fry out after rain

List how busy trails typically are

I got some great feedback and advice with my interviews and nothing negative surprisingly! I’m really glad this was part of the project because it really is helpful. Every person has a different point of view and it’s great to hear original ideas that I just haven’t thought of. I got a lot of the same general ideas and advice, which is good. My interviewers really liked the idea of it being a “skateboarders twitter” with a constantly updated news feed with pics, videos and comments. There was also a great idea of a “check in” feature, so you could see where your friends are. Another great idea I was given was a rating and difficulty level system for each skate spot. So a beginning skater doesn’t go somewhere where he doesn’t stand a chance and so a pro doesn’t go to a place full of 10 year olds. There was also a idea of a “danger level” so you could be alerted of cops in there area and how likely you were to be busted.
A problem I am thinking about with the app is this. I personally only really use Facebook and Twitter app, I don’t want something that is just a cheap imitation. My app would have to be fully functional with Facebook and Twitter. So, if you are posting something from my skate app you can specify to post to Twitter and Facebook as well. The same with photos and videos, so a photo you post will automatically go to a album on Facebook for example. It will in a way replace the Facebook and Twitter social media aspect for Skateboarders, and skateboarders only.
So the interviews were great and much help, now I don’t know what to do to put this all together!

My interviews brought about a bunch of information that helped to enhance my project while also giving me something that I need to think about. It was a 50/50 split of people who said they’d use an app that was a guide to churches in Abilene- and that was among people who are “active app seekers.” Its amazing how many people truly use their iphones or itouches simply for necessary purposes (ie mail, texting, music, social networking) and don’t go beyond that. Part of this may also be because the students are all established at churches in Abilene- as a NEW freshman in college, I think this would be different, due to unfamiliarity. It only takes a semester to get a basic grasp on churches here, but at first it is very overwhelming and I think students forget that first feeling of uncertainty.

In order to further develop the idea (which I’m still pursuing with a slightly different target market of primary incoming freshman) I asked current students what they most look for in a church and will use those findings as filters within the app. Several of them were the same across the board- the top being community involvement, preaching style, and opportunities for involvement. I will use the most-repeated answers to create the aforementioned filter.

I am continuing to contact people for information, this time seeking as many younger students as possible, hoping that this new information will enlighten me as to weather or not I should actually pursue this as a viable option. More to come later…

Here are some of the questions that I asked a bunch of people when I interviewed them.

1. did you grow up in Abilene?

2. did you know anyone older when you came to acu?

3. If so, did they show you around and tell you where need hangout spots/activity spots were?

4. Do you have any relatives who live in Abilene?

5. When you first came to ACU, how long did it take you to find out some neat hangout spots? Activity spots?

6. Do you like camping or biking/being outdoors? If so, do you know of any good biking trails, camping sites, etc? How long did it take you to find it? How did you hear about it?

7. Did you have a hard time at first finding out where things in Abilene were?

8. Did you mainly just stay on campus your first year at ACU, or did you venture out and try to find new things?

9. How long did it take you to find some great “hold in the wall” Abilene restaurants? How did you find out where it was and if it was good?

Almost all of the people I interviewed did not grow up in Abilene, and a huge majority of the people said that they found out where good hang out spots in Abilene were by talking/knowing an upperclassman at ACU, or by asking someone where places were that lived in Abilene for a while. People are also very particular when it comes to eating at “hole in the wall restaurants.” Usually those types of restaurants are really run down and look somewhat “sketchy” so they didn’t want to go there unless they heard from someone they knew that it was good. As far as outdoors activities… they found out some places on their own like skate parks, etc. but as far as the out of the way, more “hidden” places, they again had to find out from upperclassman or older friends.

My findings include that people like community when it comes to parks and mobile apps. Other commonalities included apps such as hipstamatic and instagram, which incorporate photography and social media, such as posting to facebook. Other apps like fantasy football and MLB at bat where also brought up when it came to most used apps. When I aked people what their favorite park was here in town, most where at a loss for words and typically refered to them as “the one over by or close to…” which presents a whole other list of problems. Some commonalities occured between the functionality of an app and the things people tend to enjoy about parks. These findings included Ease of use, community, usefulness, enjoyment, proximity, ect.

After interviewing severeral of my friends and neighbors, I also started to consider the funtionallity of events and notifications. In which ways can something like a park clean up be sponsored by a bigger online community, and how does something like a burn ban be announced. When it comes to online communities for the most part your name or username is everything, but a park is different in the sense that for the most part everyone there is a stranger, and would like to remain anonomous.

CHOICES…

After interviewing ten people I found that there were actually a hand full of people who do not like to download apps or use apps. They had when they first received the phone and had the hype of everything the phone could do, but now they do not use more than three or four. A problem I ran into was having to accomodate for people who still do not have smart devices, or only being able to use the device on Wi-Fi connections. Trying to have everyone at an event check in would be unrealistic as there would be no motivation. Several people suggested using either a QR code or linking with another application Bump. Both of these would allow ease of access to the check in system and would not casue too much of a hassel. However, these methods would still miss the demographic without smart phones. A tally system offered for the creator of the event would allow them to mark their friends as present, but only a maximum of two or three every minute. Many people were mostly concerned about the anonymous factor of creating the events and how they would be shared, while others thought the whole process was more complictated than helpful. Of all the things noted, the list came down to a couple of decisions. This should no longer be an app. Even if it is a website, it could be accomodating for mobile devices and then people would also have access to view from a computer and would therefore include more people. The website would have to have a catchy name so that people would remember it and become more likely to use and therefore increase the amount of friends also visiting the site. Those that do have a mobile device would have the benefit of using QR codes or Bump to sync the event with friends and update the map in real time. And finally, since the incentive is all on the host, there could be some tally system offered to check in others and make it easier for them to find friends and invite them. The biggest issue would be to make the design simple, sleak, and as least confusing as possible.