Campus Navigator
A campus routing concept that helps students move from uncertainty to confident arrival in minutes.
Overview
What was built and why it matters.
Campus Navigator is a concept web product that computes practical routes between campus locations and presents them in short, student-friendly steps.
It matters because navigation friction is repeated daily, especially for new students, and small improvements in arrival confidence can create high repeat usage.
Problem
Campus maps answer where, not how.
Students can find buildings on a map but still miss destinations because of hidden entrances, connector paths, closed walkways, or unclear naming conventions.
This creates avoidable time loss, stress, and low trust in official campus digital tools.
Approach
Design around real movement decisions.
- Intent-based search: Index places by how students think (classrooms, advising, dining), not only directory labels.
- Campus-aware routing graph: Model entrances, walkways, connectors, and restricted paths.
- Clear instructions: Use short, landmark-based steps for low cognitive load while walking.
- Resilience checks: Handle edge cases such as closures and location uncertainty.
Contributions
What I personally did.
- Defined product framing, primary user journeys, and core requirements.
- Authored supporting artifacts: PRD, GTM plan, PR/FAQ, and case study.
- Outlined route-computation logic and instruction design principles for student readability.
- Specified success metrics around arrival confidence and repeat usage behavior.
Outcomes
What changed.
- User benefit: Faster and more confident navigation in time-sensitive situations.
- Product value: Stronger repeat-use potential due to daily utility and low interaction overhead.
- Institutional value: Better discoverability of campus locations and services.
Lessons and Next Steps
What I learned and what comes next.
Wayfinding quality depends as much on instruction design and context handling as on routing math. Users need confidence, not just coordinates.
Next steps would include on-campus pilot testing, route confidence scoring, and an accessibility-first path mode.
Artifacts
Supporting material and why each is useful.
- Case Study: product narrative and strategic rationale.
- PRD: requirements, constraints, and implementation logic.
- GTM: launch strategy and adoption plan.
- PR/FAQ: external narrative and anticipated user questions.