💭 How can we...
use technology to encourage more real-life connection, all within the vast ecosystem of a world-class city?

background

In a rapidly digitizing world, connections are growing increasingly difficult to naturally foster in physical spaces.


As more of our daily lives become involved in a pixelated space, more of our attention becomes dispersed, leading to a rise in social isolation with less interpersonal interaction. 

passion project * for all intents and purposes, tellie is, sadly, not a real app.

solution

I sought to design a digital interface that encourages users to not only disconnect online, but instead connect offline and explore a healthier relationship with social media, while immersing in the benefits a walkable city offers.
As more of our daily lives become involved in a pixelated space, more of our attention becomes dispersed, leading to a rise in social isolation with less interpersonal interaction. 
As more of our daily lives become involved in a pixelated space, more of our attention becomes dispersed, leading to a rise in social isolation with less interpersonal interaction. 

go to solution
Introduction

While the ideology of urbanism itself is not a modern invention, the benefits that the New Urbanism movement boosts are prominent in the blueprint of many cities’ ideas for the future, namely the 15-minute city.

User Interviews

I wanted to find ways I can enhance my solution by devising personalized touches coming from firsthand accounts of people’s interactions with cities, as well as digital products that serve this experience. I therefore utilized my interview insights to discover what potential add-ons I can include to guide me in the overall creation of the app.


I conducted 4 interviews, with an age range of 20-30.

Insights

  • Public transportation is an integral experience to how a person experiences a new city, or an area they have not explored before


    Intuitive Navigation
  • Perceptions of social community (whether experienced first-hand or previously conceived notions of the place) change the way a person sees a city


    Encourage Social Spaces
  • The more accessible a city is made available, the more incentivized a person feels to tour an area


    Affordance of new opportunities
competitive analysis

To get a sense of how existing apps help people discover recommendations within a city, I compiled a variety of platforms for each of the 3 aspects that the app was to offer.

  • recommendationsInfatuationEditorial-based format, tailored to specific neighborhood-centric restaurant suggestions. Automatically set to the major city user is located nearest.
persona building

After understanding both the personal experiences of interacting with cities as well as the apps currently helping serve them in navigating their journeys, I built demographic sets as well as user flows to better understand the potential audience, and how they could utilize the app.

lo-fi prototype

To visualize the prototype better, I wanted to dive deeper to how the user would approach it. For lo-fi prototyping, I utilized storyboarding as one concept to imagine what interacting with the app would be like, as well as sketching different approaches for the screens.

hi-fi prototype

After I gathered my insights for all aspects including direction, design, and demographics, I consolidated my findings into the form of a hi-fi prototype.

designed for iPhone 13 Max.

Pedestrian-POV navigation

With tellie, navigation guidance is interactive, focusing on the pedestrian's POV every step of the way, using landmarks and 3D to map the route.

Users can also has the option to view the page for each station for an intro about its amenities and neighborhood.

Multiple city guides

tellie offers personalized searches that pinpoints different spots, ranging in activities from food to fun, around the neighborhood of choice to highlight to the user.

In Review / Future enhancements

  • This was the first version, and I really enjoyed ideating! If given the time, I would like to simulate this in user testing rounds to see how we might be able to improve real-time functionality.

    User testing
  • By further connecting the digital with the physical world, incorporating AR technology in areas of the app such as navigation can allow users to interact with the city.

    AR technology
  • In a real scenario, tracking insights such as number of routes taken or spots saved can illustrate retention rates, which would benefit to understand the usefulness of the various features in tellie.

    Metrics & Measures