What categories?
February 23rd, 2010
The way we think WhataPlan is going to be working is that users are going to be looking for a particular activity to do in London. You are the user. You will be choosing a category to make a plan. The question is, what are the right categories to choose from? We are currently thinking that these cover most potential activities:
- Drinking (Pubs & Bars)
- Eating (Restaurants)
- Family Fun (things to do with the kids)
- Listening (Concerts, Reading events)
- Outdoors (Parks, walks)
- Partying (Clubs, Bars)
- Playing (Games, activities)
- Watching (Theatre, Cinema)
- Extraordinary (unusual things)
- Dating (where to go on a date)
- Cultural (Museums, Concerts)
We will also have a ‘Surprise me’ option in case you’re finding it difficult to know what you are looking for. Do you think we have covered all your bases?
February 24th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Some thoughts, in no order and just as they pop into my head:
February 24th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Thanks for your suggestioni – this opens up the debate on the old trade off between having a large number of specific categories and trying to be as broad as possible. If you include a coffee category or interesting talks by scientists, why don’t you also include a tea category and an electonic music category? These are all sensible things that one might want to do in London. I would think that our typical user has little vision of what she is looking for and is happy to be surprised by what we suggest. If the user knows that he is looking for work/play type things, I would suggest that there are already some good sites on the internet that lets the user find appropriate places. I might be wrong on this but I would think the user has little appetite to choose from a million categories.
February 25th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
How do we feel about a ‘treat’ category? Think massage, chocolate, spa, nice dinner etc?
March 15th, 2010 at 11:23 am
yo whips,
how about “underground” activities like watching break-dancing competitions etc.? (or are they under “activities”/”extraordinary”?)
“Treat” is great for girls.
Am almost wondering if “shopping” should be a whole category in itself
(e.g. Columbia Road Flower Market for flowers, any special sales that’s going on/London Fashion Show, maybe Billingsgate Market for fish? – and for the record, I have woken up at 3.30am once to haul my ass to Billingsgate market!)
x
March 29th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Yes, we would hope that WAP works very well to discover “underground” or not so obvious things. I think the “Extraordinary” category covers this well.
Congrats for making it to Billingsgate! I still have to get organised to make it there. But would you consider this a shopping trip? I don’t know much about shopping to be honest, but isn’t a typical shopping trip plan made along those lines: “I need a new jumper”, “I think X has a sale on” or “I like XYZ’s new designs”, “I better go and get that jumper”. On Whataplan the decision tree would be something like:
- I don’t know what to do today.
- Mmmhh shopping might be great
- I would like to shop in West London
And then the WAP gives you some ideas on where to shop. I think we won’t be able to take into account the kind of thing you would like to shop for, so not sure how we can best implement it. Maybe shopping trips (Columbia Road etc.) are clubbed together with activities?
March 31st, 2010 at 12:46 pm
yeah.. i think you need to have a system where you can tag plans with multiple tags so they appear in multiple categories… (in case there are overlaps.. because it really depends on how people categorise things in their own heads)