Take a Seat – Research Booklet

Helping students at NC State find a good place to sit, work, and eat.

Talley Student Union | Park Shops Emma Carter + Kathryn Mullis Spring 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Background Research

06 07

PROBLEMS Personas Pain points

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PROPOSAL Resolution Promotional

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INDEX Brand Development Iterations & Process

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INTRODUCTION

TALLEY STUDENT UNION & PARK SHOPS

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It’s no secret that college students are very busy—between classes, clubs, work, and everything else, having moments to slow down for a cup of coffee in between classes can be a big part of keeping the day moving.

At NC State, Talley Student Union and Park Shops are two popular places for students to hang out between classes to grab a cup of coffee or some food, and maybe get a little homework done. However, both Talley and Park Shops have limited seating that can make taking a snack break difficult. Between tables being full and tables being occupied by one person, it can be really difficult to find somewhere to sit in a timely manner.

RESEARCH Through multiple observation sessions and exhaustive interviews, we gleaned a lot about how students use Talley Student Union and Park Shops. We each studied a different place and realized that there were many commonalities in the purposes and actual uses of the two public places.

These are both high-traffic areas where many students congregate for socializing, working, studying, eating, and taking a break between classes. Both provide the needed resource of free space to students to carry out daily activities, though there are drastic differences in size. Talley offers a large variety of types of seating while Park Shops is limited to small tables pushed closely together. Even Talley is seemingly full much of the time, leading students to sit in unconventional loactions.

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We both researched theories and studies about territoriality in public spaces, especially coffee shops, as well as the importance of personalization in public spaces.

This was confirmed in our observations of students spreading out their belongings on tables as if to claim their spot. There was a trend of people using mobile whiteboard panels to barricade themselves away from others in Talley.

We also saw many students move furniture to fit their needs.

TJ Willis, the director of operations at Talley, said this of his own observations, “ I think people intentionally shut people out, so it’s weird that people would want to come to Talley and feel connected, but then they disconnect themselves through that; by spreading out, by putting earbuds in, by saying ‘Don’t bother me, I’m just here to watch you. Don’t come talk and interact.’ So that’s the hardest part, is how do you encourage that community.”

PROBLEMS

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THIRD-YEAR ANIMAL SCIENCE SHORT-TERM TALLEY

SCENARIO: → Intimate knowledge of Talley and seating within →

Frustration with individuals taking up entire tables

Jennifer has just gotten out of class at Riddick Hall and immediately opens the GrubHub app to order a sandwich and coffee from Port City Java. She sees on the app that her purchase will be ready by the time she walks there. Once she arrives, she picks up her order and looks around for a place to sit, knowing that she only has 10 minutes to eat and a WebAssign due for her next class. She sees that all of the tables are full, with many of them being occupied by people on their laptops not eating. She wishes that she had a way to know when someone would get up so she could decide if it is worth 10

the time to walk elsewhere. She wanders around the first floor of Talley fot a couple of minutes, and decides to sit on one of the couches outside of Wolfpack Outfitters. While she’s eating, she scrolls through Twitter. Noticing that her phone is about to die, she looks around for an outlet, but doesn’t see one near her. Frustrated, she decides to head to class without doing her WebAssign. As she walks to class, she thinks about all of the people in Talley sitting alone at huge tables, and kicks herself mentally for not thinking to ask if she could sit with them even for a couple minutes so she could’ve done her homework.

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FIRST-YEAR PHYSICS LONG-TERM TALLEY

SCENARIO: Alex just got out of class at 5:00pm. He has not been to Talley many times, but needs to get some school work done, so he decides to head to Talley in hopes of finding somewhere good to sit and focus. He plans to stay for a few hours, so he looks for a quiet and comfortable place to sit. As he enters on the second floor, he sees that the couches are full of people chatting, so he goes up to the third floor. He scans the crowd of people for an empty table because he really wants to have a workspace where he can put his books and laptop, but he does not see one. He sees many people are sitting alone at tables with four chairs,

and thinks for a minute about asking to join them. He decides that that conversation would be too awkward and would make him look like a freshman, so he decides to keep looking. He takes the elevator up to the fourth floor and sees a couple of empty armchairs, but still hopes to find a table. Just as he notices one in front of him, someone else comes and sits at it with their lunch. Discouraged, he turns back to the armchairs.

He decides that having his laptop on his lap won’t be too bad, but he wishes he’d moved a little faster to the empty table. At least there’s an outlet next to this chair.

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→ Unfamiliar with Talley and where less populated areas are →

Easily made anxious by large groups of people and not knowing where to go

A

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H GU T E PT K I N

SECOND-YEAR POLI SCI SHORT-TERM PARK SHOPS

SCENARIO: → Has been to Park Shops a number of times for coffee →

Frustrated by the lack of organization with the line

Aniketh is on his way to Caldwell for his sociology class when he decides he wants to stop for some coffee before class. It’s about 1:15, close to class change, so he expects Park Shops to be busy. He opens the GrubHub app on his phone to order, but notices that the wait time is 34 minutes—way too long.

He decides he’ll risk waiting in line. Once he gets to Park Shops, he enters through the side door where the lounge space is. Immediately, he notices a large crowd around the counter.

It’s difficult to tell who is waiting for their order and who is in line—there’s little to no division within the mass. Frustrated,

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he walks towards the line, which wraps around the space and into the seating area facing Poe. Looking at his watch, he sees he has about 20 minutes until his class starts, so he gets in line.

He notices that someone is sprawled out asleep on the couch and that both of the armchairs are being used by people with laptops, so he decides to go outside and sit in the sunshine. All of the tables are also being used, so he decides to sit on the large concrete wall for a moment before heading off to class, a little frustrated about the apparent misuse of the indoor lounge space.

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FOUIRTH-YEAR ARCHITECTURE LONG-TERM PARK SHOPS

SCENARIO: Cameron has just finished her studio for the day and decides to go to Park Shops to keep working with a change of scenery. It’s about 6:00, so it probably won’t be too busy. She walks down Stinson and into Park Shops, noticing that each of the small tables are crammed up next to each other. Deterred by the lack of space, she heads over to the other side in search of a table with a little more space on the sides for her bag. On the other side, there are a number of people but an empty table that she’s able to claim. She sits down and sets her bag on the ground next to her as she begins working. After she’s been there for about an hour, she notices that the other tables around her have filled

up. She also notices a girl seemingly searching for somewhere to sit. The girl doesn’t see anywhere, and turns around to look somewhere else. Cameron feels kind of bad—she’s sitting at a pretty big table by herself. She feels like she definitely could have shared the space, but she doesn’t really know how she would have communicated that to her. She tries to forget about it and move on with her work. She decides to leave about half an hour later, and as she leaves she sees the girl crouched under the stairs with her laptop on her lap. Again, she feels bad, but she leaves Park Shops and heads home.

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→ Frequents Park Shops for its intimate seating options →

Avoids the right side of the space because it’s crowded

Stress

THE SEARCH FOR SEATING

Time Arrive at destination

Talley

Park Shops

Decision to go to place

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Look for seating

Availability confusion

Can’t find seating

Unpreferable spot

Have to leave

= Pain Point

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PROPOSAL

After observing the territorial nature of students in public spaces, we realized the importance of privacy as well as efficiency in that space. There is a limited amount of seating in the many public spaces on campus where students stop for a coffee, bite to eat, or study break, and a much larger number of students coming in and out of these spaces.

Therefore, it is necessary to maximize the seating that is available to accommodate as many students as possible.

Our solution aids in the search for seating by establishing a language that clearly communicates a user’s purpose. The visual language defines spaces—letting students know where they should sit to best suit their

needs. This communication increases the turnover and streamlines the seat-finding process.

The system we have created is built of colors and patterns that indicate the amount of time a user plans to sit in a space. The patterns also separate the spaces in front of each chair to mitigate any discomfort students feel while about sitting next to a stranger. Sometimes there is no other option, so helping students feel more comfortable taking a seat is important for the efficient usage of seating.

By breaking up the expanse of the surface of a table, it’s easier for different users to define their personal space—making it much less awkward to sit with a stranger.

TABLETOP DESIGNS The color-coded system for the tables provides a language for the space that makes the seat-finding process more efficient. We used friendly and casual verbage to simplify the launch of the program as students acclimate. The tables will be color-coded according to which areas tend to already be used for longterm and quiet studying and which tables are bigger in order to accomodate the needs of as many students as possible.

The patterns within the colors form grids that break up the surface. This creates the illusion of separate spaces to make students feel more comfortable sitting at a table with a stranger.

The boundaries created by the grid may also encourage people to not spread their belongings over the whole table, as they percieve the borders of personal space.

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A big part of the reasoning behind both the design of the paterns and the selection of the color palette has to do with understanding Talley and Park shops as a study space. Both spaces can, at times, be very overwhelming, and especially because our proposed solution involves applying a pattern and color directly to workspaces, it was important to be mindful of the potential impact of those colors and patterns.

With specific regard to the rest of Talley’s patterns and colors, the finalized tabletop designs have productivity in mind. The cooler colors help users focus on their work, and the nonobtrusive patterns stand out enough to be noticeable but also don’t take away from the user’s ability to focus.

In this way, the intervention hardly seems like an intervention— it blends in perfectly to its setting, and it makes communicating easier for everyone in the space.

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SPREADING THE WORD

LOGOTYPE

#728035 #058473

#6FC6A7

#717E35

Consistent branding and signage will make it easy for the student body to identify and use the program to its fullest extent.

Tables use a color system, as well as patterns for individuals with color blindness.

TABLETOP PATTERNS COLOR PALETTE

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INFO KIOSKS Information kiosks with interactive screens are conveniently placed at the top and bottom of each floor at the staircases, which recieve a lot of foot traffic. The kiosks usually just display a map of the building, but we can include news about the Take a Seat program.

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BANNERS Students are used to looking up at the new banners in Talley whenever they pass through the student union. They are hard to miss with their large size and convenient and consistent location on the walls of the third and fourth floors. This vantage point from almost every floor in Talley makes this the perfect place to announce the new system to the students of NC State.

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POSTERS The mode of announcing and explaining the new system can be adapted to Park Shops through posters on walls and on the bulletin board where students wait to pick up their PCJ coffee.

Although the layout and space of Park SHops is very different from Talley, they are used for similar purposes by students. The smaller and more limited space in Park Shops actually calls for a more efficient seating system that encourages quicker turnover.

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INDEX

BRAND DEVELOPMENT BEHIND THE LOGO

BEHIND THE PATTERNS

The logo’s arced text and open table aim to convey the invitational nature that Take A Seat aims to foster within the NC State community. Both the patterns on the table are used in our proposal and are intended to further reiterate the simplicity of our solution. Looking at the logo should help a user to understand the goal of Take A Seat, and should help them to feel comfortable identifying and using it.

The four patterns developed for Take A Seat were each inspired by visual elements on NC State’s campus. The hatching pattern was inspired directly by the woven chairs in Talley Student Union; the sprinkle-like pattern, inspired by Howling Cow; the rounder polka-dot pattern, inspired by textile patterns seen on chairs around campus; and the squiggle pattern, inspired by the many open-air spaces around campus.

BEHIND THE COLORS

BEHIND THE TYPE

The colors for Take A Seat’s table applications were chosen with both NC State University’s branding and usage of the space in mind. The turquoise color is a lighter tint of Carmichael Aqua, and the green color is a lighter tint of Genomic Green. Coming directly from the University’s branding, these colors automatically fit in to University spaces better. These two specific colors are also calming—we wanted to avoid adding any additional chaos to what can sometimes be a stressful environment regardless. These colors should help users identify a spot to sit, and then stay out of the way.

The decision to use Times Sans Serif came from the typeface’s natural academic simplicity—it retains the sophistication and academia achieved by its brother Times New Roman, but with a modern twist that gives it a young energy. It is a mellow typeface—one that serves its purpose with elegance and does not overstep its bounds. For Take A Seat, Times Sans guides users to where they need to be to work and does not overwhelm.

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TIMES SANS SERIF

nc state:

a place at the

table

LOGO IDEATION

a place at the

TABLE ncsu

A Place at the Table NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY 28

NOT TODAY

E AT THE TA AC

E BL

AP L

!

IN ME JO

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PRINT IDEATION

AHEA

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NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

We know you’re busy and need somewhere to sit.

Use the colors on the tables to find a tablemate without all the awkward questions.

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CONCEPT IDEATION

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