FAROL
Interactive Systems
Keys: Application, Tourism, Travel, Recreation
The Lighthouse is an interactive system that has since its conception the objective of providing a new experience when traveling, maximizing your experience when visiting a new location. This differential occurs through a new approach, exploring and making available to the user as resources that the city has.
Within the system, the user has the possibility to have contact with the attractions, shops, natural aspects, history, culture among many other elements characteristic of a city, but done in an organically unique way, integrating aspects and experiences of locals into the system.
After the first insights into what the Lighthouse could be, the complexity of the project became clear with the demands it intended to meet. Because of this, the project was segmented in sequential stages, each covering a specific design area, with the use of its own methodologies, in order to organize the workflow and accelerate the creation process.
Modelo de Negócios
The organization of the Farol guidelines as a product and service occurred throughout the project. However, in the beginning, trying to confirm as main impressions about the market and based on data that the product intended to solve, an in-depth survey was conducted with over 2000 people, using the case study of the Tinharé archipelago, tourist pole of the state of Bahia. In this link, you can view an infographic with a summary of the main data obtained.
With survey data in hand and confirmation of initial impressions, basic guidelines for developing the business model for the lighthouse were developed. First, defining the areas of operation that the product would serve and then developing other particularities, such as organizing the workflow for operating the business and creating prototypes of possible capitalization channels for the system.
Farol has the production of two products, the Farol application and interactive totems. The first channel of capitalization of the system is through the contracting of Farol services by third parties, this can happen by public agencies or by private associations. The second channel is through the creation of multimedia content, if a company does not have advertising material, Farol offers the production of photos, texts, institutional videos and other content that will be added to the system. The third channel is due to maintenance contracts, through the updating and replacement of the totems applied in the region.
The main capitalization channel is through the Farol packages. The initial idea is that any legalized company can enter the system for free, however, Farol Packages allow a greater exploitation of a company's services and differentials. In each of these packages, the entrepreneur can expand his page on the system with more content options and new features.
Branding
The experience intended by the application permeates the humanization of the interaction between system and user. Therefore, the idea was to create an identity with a more relaxed language. In addition to these issues, as a niche tourist app, the visual identity must have an approach proportional to the atmosphere provided by this activity, permeated by positive and joyful experiences.
Until that moment, there was no definition for the name of the service itself, therefore, it was necessary to create a name that was easy to compress and relate to the product. As you may have noticed, the name we received was Farol “lighthouse”. According to the Michaelis dictionary, the figurative definition of the name is:
Therefore, the choice of the link is directly subordinated to the mission of Farol, be a guidance tool for our users, in addition to being a safety reference in relation to the services offered to the public.
"(...) Everything that illuminates, shows direction, forwards; he or he who drives, goes ahead, leads; guide, course, north (...) ".
In addition to the reference elements used in the conception of identity, the development of the signal was permeated by some specific objectives. The first was that it also functioned as an application icon, avoiding the use of more than one version of the logo.
And it was also thought that the sign allowed the use of animations with its elements, mainly to increase the playful aspect of identity and also for use in specific applications, such as in-app uploads.
Some institutional applications were developed, with the creation of the company's basic stationery. The main characteristic of these productions involves the unfolding of the chromatic palette, using different colors between the pieces of identity, inferring a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere.
The main objective of the development of the visual identity manual was to establish the main application guidelines for the lighthouse's identity. In other words, it is the set of standards and technical specifications essential for the preservation of the brand's properties.
An exclusive family of icons was used as graphics to support identity. Its main function is to portray some aspects and actions that are part of the tourist environment, of great attractions of our country (Brazil), for leisure and transportation activities. Below, you can see some screenshots of future animations using these elements.
Along with the development of the support elements, some app promotion materials were produced, both in the ad format. The production of this material had as main objective to clarify the possible approaches of communication before the public, treatment of images, layout of presentation, among other factors.
In addition to the animations, new productions from Farol are on the way, as a family of gifts to be delivered to system users, promotional applications for establishments, websites and social media.
Farol System Architecture
As mentioned earlier, Farol has two application aspects, through the development of applications for smartphones or the production of interactive totems. The application of each of these products has its development intrinsic to the restrictions and demands of each location. For example, the development of interactive totems has its application mainly focused on areas such as lesser communication infrastructure. Being an effective product for indoor or local areas with restricted access.
The main product of this project is the full version of Farol, the application developed for smartphones. The Farol application works as a complete tool, meeting all the objectives necessary to offer a new tourist experience for the user. To this end, Farol seeks to innovate, combining four tools in just one system. We will explain each of these functions later.
After establishing all the characteristics of the user profile, raised by field research, we developed all the functions that each tool would perform in the system to meet the demand of these future users. In this organization chart, the entire tree of options and interactions applied to each of the tools present in the system are planned. In addition, this structure includes all the relationships and guidelines necessary for the operation of the system, with the availability of the main navigation routes available to users.
App Interface
The development of interfaces for devices presents a series of peculiarities, firstly due to the diversity of companies and devices available on this platform, there is a multitude of hardware configurations available for different budgets. This makes it an interesting challenge to produce interfaces that properly interfere with most of these devices.
My productions go through the preconception phase of the materials still by the manual process, so, go for develop the layouts of our system!
The previous development of the identity and architecture of the system facilitated the achievement of good results in the design of the interfaces. To, in advance, it is possible to create some information for this design phase, for example, we use each element present in the chromatic identity palette to segment each of the 4 features present in the application. The entire design phase of the interface included the construction of elements by grids, in order to establish greater homogeneity in the material.
The result of this step was the development of 126 basic screens for the application, in order to provide for most of the possible deployment that the Lighthouse may need. Next, we'll talk a little bit about each of these four tools present in the application.
Virtual Catalog
The Virtual Catalog has as main objective to function as a virtual inventory, where the user has at his disposal all the options of services and attractions available for his trip. There, the user can count on his own page for each establishment, being able to see the evaluations of each user who used the service.
The reviews provided in the virtual catalog are provided only by users who have actually used this establishment. For this, the system provides a Qr code for this service, which can only be generated by printing a tax coupon, in which the code is attached to the end of the bill.
My Routes
The second tool, My Routes, serves as a travel organizer. Through the content available in the virtual catalog, the user can configure the schedule of his trip step by step, besides being able to count on the suggestions of displacement between the selected attractions.
When scheduling the excursion, the system identifies the location of each attraction and possible prospect in the Google database and the options for scrolling between each of these points, defining an estimated time.
The third session, My Virtual Guide, one of the main tools present in the system, aims to act as an interactive GPS navigator. When programming its route, the user has the possibility to execute it in real time when arriving at its destination, at that moment the Lighthouse extracts from its database all the relevant points next to the itinerary carried out by the user. These points contain information and specific curiosities of each element close to the route, with this content being made available on the device's screen or in the audio description.
My Virtual Guide
My Farol
Finally (and not least), we come to the spotlight, my Lighthouse. This tool acts as a small social network for users of the system. Its main function is to encourage the exchange of experiences between members of the Lighthouse network.
To achieve this goal, the system has the Farol points club, where each interaction that the user establishes in the system results in points being obtained within the application that can be exchanged for company products or discounts at establishments present in the system. The user gets points in several ways, from the evaluation of the establishments, to the creation of itineraries in the city for other tourists to use on their trips.
One of the main desires of Farol is to transform the application into a platform for exchanging knowledge and experiences among its users, bringing relations between people of different cultures and customs closer, becoming a point of differentiated approach in the market, close to its distance market influence on the content produced in your system.
Keep an eye, soon i will have new productions for this project, with the availability of its concept for a crowdfunding campaign.