“The RMNP experience will provide recreational fulfillment, offer educational opportunities, and foster respect.” — Team Mission Statement
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- » overview &
objectives: - Working via conference calls and email with Bill Lucas from MAYA Design in Pittsburgh, our experience design class took on a semester-long team project to redesign the National Park Service experience at Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colorado. While the primary objective for the course was to learn to design positive user experiences, the secondary objective was to learn how to present an experience to a potential client.
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In our research phase, we looked into the kind of trends that might affect someone’s visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, or RMNP. We identified the huge influence of portable technology, “edutainment,” fast culture, and interactivity on our everyday lives. I started to ask how I could harness these trends to better the park experience.
Through rapid prototyping, and testing, I worked to develop a series of digital devices for park users that could include GPS navigation, information, guided hikes, virtual geocaching games, photos, and more. After some brief investigations into plastic handhelds, I decided that wearable technology should be the future of portable technology in the park, and we decided to call this technology Park Gear.