ELIZABETH BANDA
MVMT by wkrm
wkrm is a student-run, faculty-led design studio housed at the Department of Fine Arts building at the University of Texas at Austin taught by Jon Freach, Associate Professor of Practice.
The studio provides students with the experience of working with clients in a realistic setting and support for their professional development.
In the fall of 2023, I was a part of the cohort that did research for Austin Transit Partnership.
Austin Transit Partnership is the organization in charge of building a Light Rail in Austin.
The goal of this research was to help students improve how they get around, create a more confident culture of mobility, and make adopting the Light Rail easier when it becomes a new mode of transit on campus.
So what did we do?
What was I directly responsible for?
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Researching how students wayfind around campus by completing interviews, surveys, and "Ride-Alongs" (Shadowing students who were told to use public transit to get to an off-campus location from campus.)
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Researching "Mobility Apprehension" in students (Observing + doing interviews on why students are apprehensive of public transit).
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Observing campus disruptions, specifically during game days and other campus events. (Observing how pedestrian patterns change during certain events and the results of these changes.)
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Filming from the perspective of a student who walks to campus to show how students get around and what they may encounter.
My Final Concept
The final concept that I was responsible for was the Sarcastic Map.
Poking fun at the social map of the area around UT Austin. This “Sarcastic Map” presents an authentic depiction of the varied student experience within and around the University of Texas. The map serves as a narrative that not only highlights the student's perspective through lived experiences but also infuses it with clever and insightful commentary.
Extras
I designed new wayfinding signage for UT campus. Many complaints from students regarding wayfinding was that the signage around campus was often too small to notice. Many students weren't even aware that UT had ways of wayfinding in the first place!
I was inspired by mall directories- the signage would be large and hard to miss, and would include sections for UT buildings, food, and shops.
While doing our "Ride-alongs", I also noticed that students were often unsure of what to do while they waited for their bus at the bus stop. The obvious answer would be to use their phones, but a lot of the time, students were apprehensive about doing this for fear that they might miss their bus.
I wanted to create a concept that would alleviate commuters' boredom at bus stops, without the fear of missing their bus, while also fostering a sense of community. Thus, I created a bus stop game! I coded the game in p5.js so it could actually be tested. The user must press the space bar to place a flower. Here's the link!
The point of this little game is to collaborate with other bus riders and place as many flowers as you can to make Bevo happy. It would be a fun game to come back to during the day to see the progress. After the day ends, the game will reset. Flowers may be placed by pressing a button on the floor to avoid having to touch the screen, and the arrival times of buses would be displayed at the top so riders won't miss their bus.
If this bus stop game were real, I would imagine it would be like a community Tamagotchi, acting as a digital pet for bus riders and maybe even pedestrians who want in on the fun. Perhaps Bevo could walk around and eat flowers- and maybe when the community hits a certain number of flowers, they can buy fun hats/clothes for Bevo.
