1. To make it more long-term sustainable: Change the layout of the maze every few months, encouraging the Brisbane community to continuously return to Northshore and participate with the project and the site
2. To make it more site specific: Have one of the maze layouts resemble the Brisbane River in an artist’s interpretation, further linking back to the port’s heritage and its importance to the city
3. To make it more long-term sustainable: Change the paintings every few months with the layout of the maze. The pictures will be chosen from those that are uploaded to the website from members of the community ->This also means there will be multiple painting sessions throughout the year for people to participate in. 

Digital Prototype

Physical Prototype

Before It Was Scrapped

Through extensive research and idea development, a riverside and Augmented Reality (AR) engaging maze is yet to be done on any scale, especially open to public use Paragraph

Upon further research, it was found that the only mazes in the area were over an hour outside of Brisbane, with no evidence of any form of a digital aspect, and all having an entry price. After finding out that it was not an idea which has been done before, then further developing it through adding AR engagement and an application, the maze proved its originality as a creative placemaking opportunity.

Through the development of the project, it was decided that to have both physical and digital involvement in the maze in order to engage all audiences as the inclusion of both aspects ensures that everyone can participate in some way, whether they go through the maze or not. Research also shows that there have been extensive positive responses to previous brands AR activations, enabling companies to reach new audiences far beyond existing customers (Catalystvr, N.d., Para 4). Studies show that there are large engagement benefits with AR, as it has the ability to amplify human performance, shifting users towards passive consumption, active interest, and participation; which allows audiences to have an engaging relationship with the project (PSFK, 2018, para 1).

Why It Was Scrapped

In the week 10 group critical presentations feedback, many of our peers were confused about the AR aspect, what it would involve, and how people would interact with it, both outside and inside of the project. With all of this confusion and the technicality of adding Augmented Reality into the project, it was a group decision to cut the AR aspect out of the project entirely.

What the AR was changed to

As a group, we still wanting people to be able to interact with the feature wall and so we decided to change the Augmented Reality into a QR code, to keep the main shipping container. With the QR code now at the bottom of the shipping container feature wall, the community will still be able to interact with the feature wall, which the QR code will then take them to the project’s website where they can post their photo to the aMAZEment at Northshore Gallery, and within that site also be able to access the leader board for the timed maze races, to further engage with the project

References:

Melbourne Victory Augmented Reality Fan Engagement. (N.d.). Catalystvr. Retrieved from https://catalystvr.com.au/works/augmented-reality-a-league/

How AR Prompts Deeper Consumer Engagement Around Content. (2018). PSFK. Retreived from https://www.psfk.com/2018/06/ar-content-engagement.html

People’s Path: Melbourne, Australia

Community engagement was an important aspect of the project development. This importance was inspired by the ‘People’s Path’ in the Fitzroy Gardens. The level of community engagement through the making of the project was something that was then wanting to be incorporated into this development

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Granite Belt Maze: Granite Belt, Australia

In the three mazes, all had some form of further audience engagement at dead ends, which previous research has shown that inclusing puzzles at dead ends will help audiences find a way out and alleviate frustration

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• Mazes have an unmistakable and mysterious allure which has intrigued and interested people for thousands of years as it acts as a challenge to one of the most important life skills, the ability to create an ecocentric cognitive map of the environment and be able to navigate that cognitive map and be able to navigate it.

Weismann, E. (2014). Amazing Maze: What Science Says About Solving Labyrinths. National Geographic. Retrieved from: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140730-science-mazes-labyrinth-brain-neuroscience/

• “Building mazes is a fun and low-cost way to utilise the potential of a space… and incorporate native building materials”.
• This fun, interactive, and mind-stimulating activity has led to mazes becoming increasingly popular amongst all ages of audiences.

Capps, K. (2014, July 7). Why Every City Needs a Labyrinth [Web Log Post]. Retreived from https://www.citylab.com/design/2014/07/why-every-city-needs-a-labyrinth/373965/

• The only mazes in the area were over an hour outside of Brisbane, with no evidence of any form of a digital aspect, and all having an entry price
• Puzzles are often included at dead ends to help audiences find a way out and alleviate frustration

A Brief History of Mazes. (2014). National Building Museum. Retrieved from: https://www.nbm.org/brief-history-mazes/

• There are large engagement benefits with AR, as it has the ability to amplify human performance, shifting users towards passive consumption, active interest, and participation; which allows audiences to have an engaging relationship with the project

How AR Prompts Deeper Consumer Engagement Around Content. (2018). PSFK. Retreived from https://www.psfk.com/2018/06/ar-content-engagement.html

Audience: Young family – Mum with a 10 year old & 7 year old

Arrive at Northshore in the afternoon when the kids have finished school -> Mum takes the kids to the maze as a new activity to keep them active, engaged, and spark their creativity -> Mum sets up afternoon tea at one of the tables around the maze -> The kids try to find their artwork on the maze which they painted during the community painting sessions a couple of months prior -> The kids compete for who can go through the maze the fastest on the mums phone and upload it to the maze’s website, feeling a sense of acheivement in the eye-catching and personal development which they helped to create -> Mum competes as well -> They settle down for afternoon tea by the river -> Mum takes a photo of the kids in front of the aquatic feature container -> Mum posts photo on Facebook which increases brand awareness and makes Northshore a recommended area for her friends and other families -> Through the word of mouth, the maze becomes a popular place for families to bring their children for playdates and to keep them entertained and active after school.

• People might get bored after going through the maze and interacting with the AR a few times, so consider changing the maze outline and having a new AR display every few months to keep people interested and coming back
• Safety and lighting if it’s open at night
• Look at public transport for people getting to the site
• Airflow/airconditioning during summer
• Include chairs, tables and an open area for people to stay at the site longer after they completed the maze for a lunch – Make the surrounding area more appealing
• People got confused about the AR aspect, so as a group it was decided that the idea would be scrapped, having just a feature wall instead

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What are the key points made about giving and receiving feedback in the development of creative concepts and prototypes?

• On each version of the prototypes and presentations, you learn something new that matters for success
• Questions ought to point to actions
• Questions allows teams to focus on endeavour and developing partial proofs of concept
• Assume routinely that the current project is one small modification away from what it needs to be
• Questions should lead teams to identify strategies available to modify innovation prototypes and make it represent different
• Objective is to define the space of opportunity that might be covered by changing aspects of the problem you solve
• Teams know they’re progressing if at any point it is realised that a problem is not worth pursing, is solved, or that a space of opportunity is smaller than initially thought
• The prototype should gradually reveal the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the problem

Perez-Breva.L, Roberts. E & Fuhrer. N. (2017). Innovating : A Doer’s Manifesto for Starting from a Hunch, Prototyping Problems, Scaling up, and Learning to Be Productively Wrong. Retreived from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=4812122

Could your team employ any of the problem solving strategies and tools discussed in your project?

• My team has employed some of the problem solving strategies discussed such as routinely assuming that our project is one small modification away from what it needs to be, identifying and being notified of possible spaces of opportunity, and aligning with the given definition of progress on the prototype.

What are the important prototyping strategies the author has identified and how might you apply these to your projects?

The important strategies mentioned in Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S. (2016) are to define the purpose, identify important project level contextual factors, keeping it simple, Acknowledging the power of cheap and fast prototypes, and proposing initual contextual strategy guidelines. When defining the purpose of the prototype, it is important in order to refind the intent and purpose of the activity and what it hopes to acheive (Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S., 2016). Through identifying important project level contextual factors, it is important to look at the prior knowledge and experience, the predictability of use, and the level of user interaction which helps guide which prototyping strategy must be used (Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S., 2016). When initially starting the prototyping process, Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S. (2016) encourages teams to spend time identifying the the simplest, easiest, and cheapest way to answer critical project questions. In the prototyping process it is also important to acknowledge how valuable cheap prototypes are, as it makes it possible to move quickly and avoid spending too much money while still creating highly functional prototypes (Elverum, 2016). The final strategy mentioned in Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S. (2016) is that of proposing initual guidelined devided into categories based on the contextual level and factors of the project, in order to help answer critical questions in the prototyping process.

What are the advantages of physical prototyping and what is ‘design fixation’? What does the author say about group work in design?

Design fixation is described by Youmans (2010) as the designer creating new products with similar features to prior examples and prototyes unconsiously, leading to a reduction of innovation.

Youmans (2010) describes the advantages of physical prototyping are that it reduces the design fixation effects, which in turn leads to more original, innovative, and better performing tool designs. This lack of fixation increases the time spent interacting and with construction set which inturn led to more useful projects being designed (Youmans, R. J., 2010).

Through communication, distribution of design task components, and allowing more resources into the project, Youmans (2010) mentions that designers were less likely to fixate when working in a group rather than individually. Through being able to sub-divide tasks, team members are able to spend more time with their main attention focused on their portion of the task (Youmans, R. J., 2010)

References:

Elverum, C. W., Welo, T., & Tronvoll, S., (2016). Prototyping In New Product Development: Strategy Considerations. ScienceDirect, Volume (50), 120-121. Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/science/article/pii/S2212827116304346?via%3Dihub

Youmans, R. J., (2010). The Effects of Physical Prototyping and Group Work on the Reduction of Design Fixation. ScienceDirect, Volume 32(2), 131-135. Retreived from: https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0142694X10000517?via%3Dihub