Boiler Bathrooms

IDE 495
Macy McDevitt
Marissa Garceau
Amy Paluch
 Table of Contents

Section Item Page number

Paper 3

Appendix Table 1 7-8

Figure 1 8

Figure 2 9

Figure 3 10

Figure 4 11

Table 2 12

Table 3 12

Table 4 13

Table 5 13-14

Table 6 14

Figure 5 15-16

Table 7 16

Works Cited 18
 Boiler Bathrooms - Final Analysis

When brainstorming for the need we would like to address, we were told to design something
that interested and pertained to us. We wanted to make something that we would want to use,
this interest would encourage us to make it the best possible, because there is a chance that at the
end of the semester we could have a working prototype for us to use in our own lives.
Fortunately, as women in a male dominated STEM major and concentrations, we found many
issues that we universally struggled with. Brainstorming for something we could change to
impact our personal lives, we agreed that many of the academic buildings in engineering have
female bathrooms that are hard to find, if found at all on certain floors. After doing more
research during Milestone 3 we found that this is a problem across all majors and genders at
Purdue. Therefore, we decided we wanted to make an app that compiles all of the maps of
different buildings including their separate floors. We wanted to make the app an offline
database of the bathrooms on campus. By making it offline, it can be used in buildings with poor
cell phone service, and bad internet connection. This defines our goal of the design: to easily find
bathrooms using our app in any building, any floor, for any gender. Thus, Boiler Bathrooms was
born.

Once we decided on Boiler Bathrooms as the project we wanted to continue on with we moved
onto the next stage of our design process, which was conducting interviews for needfinding.
Each member of the group interviewed and observed 2 people, giving us a total of 6 people
surveyed. First we asked them the following interview questions:
1. What gender do you identify with?
2. What college are you in?
3. What are the top 3 buildings you spend your time in?
4. Do you have difficulty finding the bathrooms at Purdue in general?
5. Anything else?

In Table 1, located in the appendix, we have the data we collected from the participants. We then
took our participants to buildings on Purdue’s campus that they are unfamiliar with and asked
them to find both a women’s and men’s bathroom on different floors. While we observed them,
we asked them to think aloud. Through completing this activity, we learned each person has their
own method to finding restrooms in a building. Some participants immediately looked for signs
or building maps to find the restroom. A couple participants believed bathrooms were always by
water fountains, so they would look for water fountains. One participant walked around the floor
until they found a bathroom or would go to the next floor hoping to run into a bathroom. Another
participant would check each corner on one floor of a building to find the bathroom. We found it
interested they all had different methods and it seemed like the main problem was either
bathrooms would move locations on every floor or the building wasn’t marked at all, which
made finding the bathroom much more difficult. Since all the buildings are inconsistent with
each other, we decided that through this activity there is a need for our app. We did more
research on this during Milestone 3, finding that when WIEP (Women In Engineering Program)
was first established “In 1969, one of the first things the first director of the programs did for
female students was to make a map of where the women's restrooms were located in each of the
engineering buildings” and often “there was only one in a building (Siegfriend 1997)”. While
Purdue has grown exponentially since then, there still is a gender imbalance in some buildings
that our survey participants originally noticed, largely in the Engineering buildings but also in
Pharmacy and a few buildings in liberal arts. This research defining the history of the problem
solidified our decision to move forward with this project.

The next step we took was to create a survey to measure interest in our app. We sent out our
survey to fifty Purdue students[1]. In our survey, we included these questions:
1. What gender do you identify as?
2. What is your major?
3. What part of campus do you spend the most time on?
4. Have you ever not been able to find a bathroom at Purdue?
5. If previously answered yes, which building gave you difficulties?
6. Have you noticed an imbalance in gendered bathrooms?
7. If so, which building(s)?
8. What clues do you look for to locate a bathroom in an unfamiliar building?
9. In buildings that have maps, are they easy to use?
10. Do you have a technique to finding bathrooms?
11. Additional comments?

Of these fifty students, 64% of the participants were female and the remaining 36% were male[1].
We found 29 people said they had gotten lost in a building on campus while trying to find a
bathroom. We also found 66% of participants recognized there was an imbalance in the number
of bathrooms based on gender on campus. In addition to conducting a survey, we did some
additional research about Purdue’s campus. We found an article from the Purdue Exponent in
2013 stating there are 819 individual restrooms on Purdue’s campus, which breaks down to 832
urinals, 1,951 toilets and 1,704 sinks[2]. Purdue’s campus has changed in the last five years, but
with over 40,000 students enrolled at Purdue, the last count of bathrooms recorded does not even
provide 1% of people on campus with a restroom. From our survey and research, we confirmed
the need for our app and got confirmation our app would be used.

We then created personas of possible users. This is important in order to gauge what users might
use our product for and what their needs may be. These are show in figures 1 through 4. We
created a variety of possibly users, such as Luke, a freshman that is new to campus (figure 1),
Alex, the upperclassman who meets for clubs in new buildings (figure 2), Mitchell, the professor
who teaches all around campus (figure 3), and Jay, the alumnus visiting after being away from
campus for a long time (figure 4). We felt this wide range of users could all benefit from our app.
We wanted to place ourselves in their shoes in order to best solve the issues they face in finding
a bathroom.

The next step we took was to make a flip-book style prototype. It consisted of a table of contents
that contained the building names in the left most column, floors of that building in the
corresponding middle column, and what page number of the flip book that particular floor
corresponded to on the right. When they would go to a page, it showed the map of the floor that
it corresponded to in the table of contents. We highlighted the bathrooms to make them
particularly visible. We then did a task analysis with participants. The results from this are in the
appendix, in Table 2 - Table 6. Task analysis is important because it shows researchers what the
users expect to happen within an application. We asked participants to think aloud so we would
hear what they thought as they completed the task which was to pick a building and floor, and
show us how they would find the map for their choice. The participants of this task analysis were
in IDE 495, so they were all engineering students that were learning about design. All of the
participants said it was intuitive and easy.

Our form/functional prototype is a series of nested folders within the iPhotos app. To “open” the
app, our participants clicked on the folder that said “Buildings”. This brought them to a new page
with a folder for each of the buildings that had maps (we had 10 buildings in this prototype).
When the user chose a building and tapped its’ folder, it brought them to a page of maps of the
different floors. They were able to pick the floor they were on and it pulled up the map. On the
map, there were stars where the bathrooms were located. This was a combination of a form and
functional prototype due to the overall functionality of it, but also the appearance of the nested
folders would be very similar, as well as all corresponding labels and layouts. The only
difference that a pure form prototype would have, is different color scheme and associated icons
to help navigate the app. During the field trials, we asked the participants to choose a building
and floor, and then to find a bathroom in that building using the “app”. We had them physically
walk the route that they found using the map and to think aloud as they did so. We used a variety
of buildings, including the Purdue Memorial Union, Herbert C. Brown Laboratory of Chemistry,
the Institute for Drug Discovery, and Beering Hall. We screen recorded the interaction which
captured their audio as well. We conducted our field trials with 5 females. We, the researchers,
were familiar with the participants (that is, we did not ask strangers) so there may be some bias
there, but generally speaking the familiarity helped with ease of communication and willingness
to critique the work that had been put into the prototype. Several of our participants were apple
users and may have had previous experience to navigating similar apps to our prototype,
however we did not prompt them on how to use (that is saying “click the screen to enter the
album”) it, and all participants navigated with relative ease. Even though we knew our
participants, we wanted to give them all the same instructions, so we made a script. Each
participant was read the following:

“Hi, ___________. My name is ___________, and I’m going to take you through our app
prototype today.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but just to recap, we’re asking people to use our prototype app
so we can see if it works as intended, and so we can narrow down what needs changing. The
session should take about 20 minutes. The first thing I want to make clear right away is that
we’re testing the app, not you. You can’t do anything wrong here. In fact, if you have any issues
navigating that means that we have found an improvement that can be made. As you use the app,
I’m going to ask you try and think out loud as much as possible. Please say what you’re looking
at, what you’re trying to do, and what you’re thinking as you navigate the app and corresponding
buildings. This will be a big help to us.

With your permission, I’m going to record what you describe electronically on my phone. The
recording will only be used to help us figure out how to improve the site, and it won’t be heard
by anyone except the people working on this project, and possibly our professor.
Please, be as honest as possible, the feedback you provide us will help us be able to improve our
app. Feel free to ask any questions you may have throughout the session. If you need to take a
break at any point, just let me know.

Do you have any questions so far? Before we look at the app, I’d like to ask you just a few
questions.
● What gender do you identify as?
● What’s your major and year in school?
● How much time do you spend on campus each week?
○ Where on campus?
● How many times a day/week do you use the public restroom?

OK, great. We’re done with the questions, and we can start looking at things. Please talk out the
process in your mind so we can have an idea of how users view our app.
● First, I’m going to ask you to look at the home screen of our app and give me
your opinion of it.
● Now I’m going to ask you to try doing some specific tasks.
○ I would like you to pick the building
■ Is it what you expected?
■ Is there anything you didn’t expect about that process?
■ Is there anything you think needs improvement?
○ I would like you to pick the floor of that building you’d like to go to
■ Is it what you expected?
■ Is there anything you didn’t expect about that process?
■ Is there anything you think needs improvement?
○ Lets go that floor and see if you can navigate to that bathroom
■ Is it what you expected?
■ Is there anything you didn’t expect about that process?
■ Is there anything you think needs improvement?
Thanks again and we’ll be sure to use your constructive criticism to make our app better.”

All of the participants were able to find a bathroom using our application. Of the 5, 4 were able
to accomplish this in under 3 minutes. The 5th participant completed it in just over 8 minutes,
and walked from the Purdue Memorial Union to Beering Hall of Liberal Arts and Education
while still being timed. Again, the users commented that it was easy and helpful. An example of
the screens these users interacted with is in the appendix, in Figure 5.

As we came back together after thinking about our project separately, we all agreed on two
improvements: making the app and making an online option. These changes will let users
actually use the app, and use it better. We were not able to make these changes ourselves due to
our lack of coding experience. To make a functional and online app, we would need to compile
the maps of every building and make the code for the app to deliver these maps to users. Adding
a GPS function would enable users to narrow down where they are in respect to buildings and
orient themselves inside of buildings. However without coding experience this is harder to
achieve in a prototype and therefore our final prototype is still the “offline” app we originally
planned on creating.
We ended our design project by presenting it to our class. We went through a shortened version
of our design steps and gave a demonstration of our final prototype, the design steps breakdown
is found in Table 7. We also suggested that it be added to the Purdue Guide app that is already in
existence. We believe our project could benefit the people of Purdue’s campus and make their
lives better.

Appendix:

Initials Age What What college What are the Do you have Anything else?
gender do are you in? top 3 difficulty
you identify buildings you finding the
with? spend your bathrooms at
time in? Purdue in
general?

L.O. 19 Female Engineering Lyle, Nelson, Yes, I usually N/A

Memorial have
Union difficulties in
the older
buildings or
the
engineering
buildings.

S.L. 20 Female Engineering Union, Yes, I have N/A

Physics, lots of these
Wesley, ME difficulties.

T.S. 21 Male Polytechnic Niswonger, Not really. N/A

Hanger 5,
Hanger 6

K.D. 21 Female College of Forestry, Yes. It seems like some

Ag Forney, buildings, if you
Armstrong don’t enter a certain
entrance, then it’s
harder to find
things. For example,
I have 1 class in EE
and I don’t pass any
bathrooms to my
class, so I have no
clue where they are.
In a lot of older
buildings they aren’t
 marked clearly.

E.K. 21 Female Engineering WALC, Yes. N/A

Nelson, Lilly

M.L. 27 Male Polytechnic Niswonger, No. N/A

Rawls,
University

Table 1: Needfinding Participants Information

Figure 1: Sample undergraduate user persona

This persona shows the goals and frustrations of a possible user. This particular user, Luke, is an
example of an underclassman. This means they are relatively new to campus and may be
unfamiliar with the layouts of different buildings.
Figure 2: Sample upperclassman user persona

This persona shows the goals and frustrations of a possible user. This particular user, Alex, is an
example of an upperclassman. Being an upperclassman, she may be very familiar with parts of
campus. Now that she is older, she may be accepting new leadership roles that meet in different
areas of campus. She may need to quickly find a bathroom in her busy schedule.
Figure 3: Sample faculty user persona

This persona shows the goals and frustrations of a possible user. This particular user, Mitchell, is
an example of a faculty member. Faculty members often have to teach in places that they are
unfamiliar with or have meetings in different buildings.
Figure 4: Sample visitor/alumni user persona

This persona shows the goals and frustrations of a possible user. This particular user, Jay, is an
example of a visiting alumni. It is likely that campus has changed greatly since his days as a user,
but he still would like to come to campus and have an enjoyable experience.
Table 2: Task analysis of the first participant

Step Step to be What is needed to How Know It Way Performed Feedback from
# performed know users

1 Open the app How to use a Previous experience Opened the binder ·Easy to use
smartphone required ·Understood
immediately
2 Choose Which building General purdue Tapped on a ·Likes the app
building you’re in knowledge/reading building from the
ability table on content
3 Choose floor Which floor you’re Reading ability Tapped on a floor
on in the building
chosen
4 Locate How to read a map Previous experience Find the
bathroom required highlighted area on
the map
5 Navigate to Ability to relate the Previous experience N/A
bathroom map to their in navigating a map
surroundings

Table 3: Task analysis of the second participant

Step Step to be What is needed to How Know It Way Performed Feedback from
# performed know users

1 Open the app How to use a Previous experience Opened the binder ·Add a full
smartphone required campus map
showing the total
2 Choose Which building General purdue Verbally chose a number of
building you’re in knowledge/reading building bathrooms in a
ability building and
showing which
3 Choose floor Which floor Reading ability Verbally chose a
building you’re in
you’re on floor
/ want to be in
4 Locate How to read a map Previous experience Turned to correct ·Add gender to
bathroom required page bathroom
·Likes the app
5 Navigate to Ability to relate Previous experience N/A
bathroom the map to their in navigating a map
surroundings
Table 4: Task analysis of the third participant
Step Step to be What is needed to How Know It Way Performed Feedback from
# performed know users

1 Open the app How to use a Previous experience Opened the binder ·Clear / Easy to
smartphone required understand
· Add whether
2 Choose Which building General purdue Saw the bathroom is
building you’re in knowledge/reading corresponding page handicap
ability number and accessible
selected their · Could
building of choice eventually
integrate into the
3 Choose floor Which floor you’re Reading ability Same as above
main Purdue app
on
· Likes the app
4 Locate How to read a map Previous Navigated the
bathroom experience required hallways to
simulate finding
the correct location
5 Navigate to Ability to relate Previous N/A
bathroom the map to their experience in
surroundings navigating a map

Table 5: Task analysis of the fourth participant

Step Step to be What is needed to How Know It Way Performed Feedback from
# performed know users

1 Open the app How to use a Previous Opened the binder ·Clear / Easy to
smartphone experience required understand
·Add whether
2 Choose Which building General purdue Looked at all the bathroom is
building you’re in knowledge/reading listed options and handicap
ability chose a building accessible
·Could
3 Choose floor Which floor Reading ability Picked a floor
eventually
you’re on
integrate into the
4 Locate How to read a Previous Turned to the main Purdue app
bathroom map experience required correct page ·Likes the app

5 Navigate to Ability to relate Previous N/A

bathroom the map to their experience in
 surroundings navigating a map

Table 6: Task analysis of the fifth participant

Step Step to be What is needed to How Know It Way Performed Feedback from
# performed know users

1 Open the app How to use a Previous experience Opened the ·Possibly add a
smartphone required binder disclaimer if a
building is
2 Choose Which building General purdue Tapped on a under
building you’re in knowledge/reading building from the construction
ability table on content ·Look into
buildings with
3 Choose floor Which floor you’re Reading ability Tapped on a
restricted access
on floor in the
and figure out
building chosen
how to label
4 Locate How to read a map Previous experience Find the them
bathroom required highlighted area
on the map

5 Navigate to Ability to relate the Previous experience N/A

bathroom map to their in navigating a map
surroundings
Figure 5: Screenshots of the screens participants saw in the final prototype
SCREENSHOTS OF APP: (to navigate to PMU floors)
First screen Once “buildings” is clicked Scroll to the PMU

Once PMU is selected Once basement floor is selected Once 1st floor is selected
Once 2nd floor is selected

Table 7. Steps of Our Design Process

Milestone 1 Defining Problem, Problem Scoping, Concept

Generation

Milestone 2 Data gathering, Defining Problem

Milestone 3 Solution Concept Selected

Milestone 4 Users Defined, Solution Development

Milestone 5 Physical Prototype Developed

Milestone 6 Prototype Testing, Revising Design

Milestone 7 Prototype Testing, Revising Design

Milestone 8 Functional Prototype Testing

Milestone 9 Summarization of Prototypes/Future Goals

Works Cited:
1. Bathroom Design. Survey. Garceau, McDevitt, Paluch. 2018.
2. Campus Bathrooms: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Herrold, M. 2013.
https://www.purdueexponent.org/features/article_1fb8fe95-0c36-58f6-a1da-
08cb7b3ba2ea.html
3. Women Engineers Celebrate 100-Year History at Purdue. Siegfried, A. 1997.
https://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/1997/970425.Daniels.history.html