Maps Redesign -- Hero Scenario User Flow with Low-Fidelity Mockups Liu Han Heng Xu Wenzhu Liu Hit F5 to view Right-click to play animation when necessary

During Kristin’s junior year’s winter break, she decided to travel by herself for the first time. She chose Pittsburgh as her destination for that her friend from childhood, Alice, is now studying at Carnegie Mellon University. Kristin received a Surface as a Christmas gift from her parents. As a person who is emotionally attached to Windows, she is super happy. Kristin is a very independent girl. She wanted to arrange her trip with this smart but portable buddy. Here is her list of what to do in the trip.

When she opens the map, the interface is very simple: a big map, -/+ buttons, find my location, and a search bar. “I like the way the map is simply but clearly presented.”

The icon on the left top corner caught her attention. “What is that shopping-bag-like icon?”

The icon took Kristin to a revolutionary feature of the map app - map store, where the user can customize the plugins/apps she needs simply by dragging and dropping!

She downloaded travel package, gourmet package and crime rate app before she sets out

When booking a room, she checked the crime rate of the city and then booked a hotel that is not expensive yet in a safe neighborhood.

After taking care of the accommodation, transportation, she marked her starting point on the map.

To save as much cellular data as she could, she searched the route from the transportation hub to her hotel beforehand.

On her way to Pittsburgh, Kristin was very excited about her trip. Her surface helped her to kill time during the 3 hour bus ride. When she arrives at Pittsburgh, she opened the map, retrieved the route, which clearly gave her directions with 3 kinds of information and traffic condition. She got to the hotel at 5 pm. Sending Alice a message “In town. Can’t wait to see you!” “I am coming to get you!” Alice replied.

They both logged in to the map app, enabled the “Meet” app in the bottom bar. Kristin saw two moving spots on the map. The system indicated the place which has the shortest distance to both of them. “Let’s meet there!” They almost said the same thing at the same time.

When they met each other, Alice gave Kristin a big, warm hug. “I know there is a traditional Pittsburgh restaurant nearby, why don’t we go there and have something to eat while we talk? But I can’t remember where it is.” Said Alice. “No worries. My surface’s map plugins, nearby, can help us to do that.”

“Are you talking about this one?” Kristin pointed at the hottest nearby restaurant. “Yeeees! Can’t believe you found it quicker then me!“ Said Alice.

At the place they found on map, they had a delicious meal and a wonderful reunion memory.

Kristin explored many spots in Pittsburgh. By the map app of “Footprint”, She marked all the places she had been to with wonderful pictures. Of course, these pictures are synced to her social website page with location coordinates. In the following days,

On the last day of her trip, Kristin’s cellular data is not enough and she is kind bored with all the stars and marks on her map. So she deletes all the map-apps.

On the last day of her trip, Kristin’s cellular data is not enough and she is kind bored with all the stars and marks on her map. So she deletes all the map-apps.

On the last day of her trip, Kristin’s cellular data is not enough and she is kind bored with all the stars and marks on her map. So she deletes all the map-apps.

At last, The map became as clean and simple as a paper one. Most important, without having so many plug-ins and redundant functions, the map loads data quicker than any of its competitors do!

Thanks to the new Surface map app, Kristin had a wonderful holiday trip. “It has only been several days, I am already in love with it! ” said Kristin.

The End.