Planet Loo is a mobile application which is aimed to provide information about existing restrooms located near the user. It is supposed to be used when the user is not familiar with his surroundings or at least doesn’t know where to find the next restroom. Unlike other existing „toilet finders“ it also includes restrooms inside of businesses like restaurants or stores. The idea came from one of the team members who had faced a very critical situation during a trip to China.
This student project started in the fall semester of 2013 with the goal of creating the concept for an application and a working prototype which was tested in an eye tracker lab. Due to good feedback the project was continued in the summer semester of 2014 with a redesign and resulted in the development of a native Android application and a business model.
Our international team started out with 4 people who were joined by another 2 students during the redesign and development phase. While each of us were involved in the initial research phase and contributed to the creation of personas and storyboards, my focus was mainly on the Interaction Design of the app thus including wireframing, creating mockups and creating the final UI Design.
Physical pressure and stress in an unfamiliar surrounding: that may be the worst combination possible for a situation. From the very beginning, it was clear that we must keep our Interaction Design very lean and make sure that the user spends as little time as possible on interacting with the app since time is a crucial factor here. By letting the user to only react to what’s shown on the screen with a tap instead of browsing and searching through menus and lists, in addition to offering just the information that is relevant and useful, we might even be able to decrease the user’s stress and pressure before actually having reached the goal.
Samantha is 21 years old and is from Spain. She has finished her Bachelor in Education three months ago and now she is moving to London. Samantha is very friendly, active and organized; able to get things done quickly. She loves reading novels, dance salsa, children and travelling around the world. She is looking for a new experience in another country as an au pair. Her goals are to learn English and find an internship abroad.
A lack of sense for orientation is her biggest weakness which is a reason why she uses the Planet Loo application.
Richard is a 46 years old and works as a financial advisor in Hannover, Germany. He loves technology and he likes to have all kinds of devices (laptop, tablet, smartphones etc …). Because of his work, Richard is very busy with making calls, managing projects or being in meetings. His phone is a daily agenda; he loves using its variety of features for everything possible.
In his spare time, he likes to stay home to relax and spend time with his daughter. His hobbies are going to the moovies and cooking. However, Richard is very devoted to work and he has not much time for fun and entertainment.
Ashley is a 16 years old student. She is very active, boastful and impatient. She is the middle child in her family and she always needs to get the attention of everybody in her family. On contrary at school she is very popular.
She loves music, fashion design and going out with her friends. By the way, she hates horror movies, spiders and mathematics.
Ashley uses Planet Loo because she wants to be the coolest and show everyone her fancy phone and its features.
Balsamiq is a great tool for rapid prototyping and evaluating the interface and interaction flow. Thanks to its rich library of UI elements you can try out many things and play with design patterns.
Encouraged by our professor to not to focus much on design patterns and usability and basically let our creativity go nuts we created our first mockups with a rather playful and caricaturistic look and feel with a custom handwritten font-face.
We went on and created a simple click-prototype which was tested by 6 users in the Gazepoint-based eye tracker lab of our university.
Although we achieved a very straight-forward and user-friendly Interaction Design the playful User Interface and its elements lacked affordance and usability.
That’s why the design went under a complete overhaul with the goal of decluttering the interface as much as possible by decreasing the amount of colors and shapes.
Also, it was ensured that the affordance of all interactive UI elements was given by using more conventional design methods.
As the saying goes: less is more.
An app like Planet Loo with an appealing interaction concept and an advanced database of restrooms could be able to raise enough awareness to attract partnerships and investments.
Businesses can register their restrooms and offer vouchers or discounts on their products or services. Being part of the Loo Galaxy, they could be ranked higher than other locations. Also, having a Planet Loo sign behind the window could attract stressed passers-by without hurting their business image.
Using Planet Loo to pay for restrooms could be useful for services. They could offer mobile payment functionalities to those unfortunates with no pocket change. Also, users could be used as reviewers for various toilet locations to save costs on inspections.
Partnering with public restroom services like Sanifair could include things like mobile payments and digital coupons which would save paper and allow users to use their coupons for digital purchases.
Users could collect points by using the payment feature and giving reviews about the restrooms they use. These points could be used to get discounts or even pay completely for their next restroom visit.
A local newspaper in Stuttgart did an interview during a media event hosted by the Stuttgart Media School, where Planet Loo was unveiled for the first time.
