IndyHop: Designing a Smart City Exploration System

Overview

Visitors and residents often struggle to discover meaningful activities in cities due to fragmented information and overwhelming recommendation platforms. IndyHop was designed as a context-aware exploration platform combining physical kiosks and a mobile application to help users discover local experiences and navigate the city easily. The project followed a user-centered design process including secondary research, location scouting, interviews with five participants, persona creation, journey mapping, prototyping, and usability testing to design and refine the system.

Tools & Methods

Key Outcomes

• Users often felt overwhelmed by generic recommendations from existing discovery platforms.
• Travelers preferred context-aware suggestions based on location, weather, and current surroundings.
• Users liked the idea of transitioning from kiosk to mobile using QR codes for continued exploration.
• Quick labels and tags such as “outdoors,” “local favorite,” or “events” helped users make faster decisions.
• Users wanted more clear feedback during navigation tasks, such as confirmation messages or clearer QR instructions.