NYC BigApps

Interaction Design Fundamentals with Chris Fahey

In response to the NYC BigApps challenge, students researched the changing role of ubiquitous computing in urban environments, specifically in New York City. Each student was asked to design a mobile application using at least one source of data from the NYC.gov Data Mine.

• Eric St. Onge : Active NYC

  

  Active NYC is an iPhone app that is designed to help residents of New York City find neighbors and facilities to play pick-up games and sports. Using New York City’s databases of parks and recreation data, the apps let users search for nearby facilities for a variety of sports and activities. Users can then see a schedule of proposed pick-up games and RSVP, or they can propose their own pick-up game. Users can subscribe to specific facilities and sports, and would receive push notifications when new games are about to begin. The app also includes social networking features so that people who find each other through the app can meet each other offline.

• Cooper Smith : Elusive Lunch

  

  New Yorkers have a myriad of lunch options available to them on a daily basis, especially when considering the proliferation of food trucks throughout the city in recent years. However, these trucks are often difficult to locate as they traverse the city, serving different neighborhoods on different days of the week. By using the various data sources available, including the NYC Data Mine and individual truck’s Twitter feeds, the Elusive Lunch iPhone application is able to locate a user within the city and inform them about their nearby food truck options. Moreover, users of the Elusive Lunch application can mark their favorite food trucks in the city. If these trucks come in to range of the user’s most recent FourSquare check in, the user will receive a notification alerting them that their favorite truck is close by.

  Food truck illustrations courtesy of Remie Geoffroi.

• Beatriz Vizcaino : Experience NYC

  

  Experience NYC, is an Iphone application , that allows tourists to search for events, natural places and landmarks in the city. In addition, users can also document their experiences, through videos or pictures and share them with friends through social networks. As the user documents his experiences the system creates a “Travel Log”, which will display the places he has been, and the pictures or videos he has taken. Experience NYC, uses the NYC data mine database for information about events and natural centers, and google maps for landmark information.

• David Bellona : Ghost Bike

  

  While ghost bikes are intended to preserve the memory of killed cyclists and create awareness for bike safety, their permanence is jeopardized as time passes. The Ghost Bike iPhone app serves as a resource to memorialize NYC cyclists and document ghost bikes beyond their physical installation, allowing users to locate ghost bikes,  read cyclist stories, and place virtual mementos such as letters, flowers, or candles. When visiting a ghost bike, the user is able to see other visitor’s mementos through an augmented reality view. In the unfortunate event that a ghost bike has been vandalized or removed, the user would still be able to see the bike as it once was.

• Russ Maschmeyer : Hot Spot NYC

  

  Hot Spot NYC helps those both old and new to New York find the best areas for their chosen activities, based on both density of establishments catering to that activity, as well as the rating of those establishments. It utilizes many sources of information from the NYC Data Mine as well as partners with services like Yelp to do it. The app gathers user ratings and establishment information for bars, music venues, parks, restaurants, sports, and types of shopping and displays them on a heat map of activity. The UI also includes an augmented reality view so users can navigate to their next hot spot on the street level.

• Derek Chan : Landmark Hunt

  

  Inspired by the NYC Big Apps contest, this project uses data being provided by the city of New York to create a new way to experience New York City sightseeing. This iPhone application concept sources landmark and special event data, and constructs riddles around them as a vehicle for getting players to explore Manhattan in a city-wide scavenger hunt. The riddles ask players to find specific details of artifacts that are a part of the city that can only be uncovered when they are at the destination. Once riddles are solved, the historical and cultural significance of the landmark is revealed, allowing players to learn about the places they are traveling to. In the end, playing this game changes the way we typically experience and enjoy sightseeing in a new city.

• Kristin Graefe : Million Trees

  

  MillionTreesNYC has planted almost 250,000 trees since its launch, including more than 30,000 street trees. The organisation needs help to keep the trees in New York city healthy and green. This application helps the organisation come closer to their ambitious goal: to plant and care for one million new trees in the next decade.

  By opening the MillionTrees app the user gets in direct contact with the trees. With the help of GPS the user gets located. Trees that can be adopted will give him/her information about near park events by senden a message. The user gets subtle reminded that there are trees he can adopt, plant or donate to. This application is a playful way to go out into the green and “talk” to trees.

• Gene Lu : New Green City

  

  New Green City is an iPhone app that monitors the level of sustainability of all 59 districts within the 5 boroughs of New York City. The main screen displays the user’s current and neighboring districts along with their levels of sustainability, which is based on a red to green spectrum, green denoting sustainable. The sustainability level of each district is generated by pulling the following data sets from NYC’s data mine: tree census, recycling capture rate, bicycle parking, playgrounds, and public space.

  Users can also integrate other iPhone apps into New Green City, such as Every Trail (cycling app) and Nike+ (running app). Through these additional apps, users can increase the sustainability level of their district depending on their frequency of usage. Users are also able to challenge friends in other districts to determine who’s more ‘green’, which is based on the data pulled from the other apps installed. To encourage users to participate on a frequent basis, all data sets pulled in from other apps are resetted on a weekly basis.

• Christopher Cannon : New York Narratives

  

  New York Narratives is the app that turns your iPhone into a guided tour of New York City’s fascinating history and stories. The user can select from a variety of tours, each narrated by a celebrity who is an expert in that tour or who has experienced first-hand the history of that tour (for instance, Debby Harry narrates the 1970s punk scene tour, Martin Scorsese narrates the Mafia’s Greatest Hits tour). At any point, the user can find their location on the map relative to the tour. Whenever the user is in proximity to a historic photo’s vintage point, they are alerted and then can use the app’s augmented reality to view that historic photo superimposed over the current viewpoint through the iPhone’s camera function. This feature named “Then & Now” gives a sense of history, encourages exploration and preserves the memory of buildings and people that are no longer with us.

  View presentation slides (PDF)

• Katie Koch : NYC Go Visit

  

  I chose to use the NYC Restaurant inspections data from the data mine, and focused my app around the experience of visiting New York. Instead of using a general restaurant finder, tourists can use the NYC Go sponsored app to find restaurants recommended by locals. In a later version of the app, I intend to make it possible for tourists to connect with locals to get more personalized advice.

• Benjamin Gadbaw : NYC OpenHouse

  

  The apartment rental scene in New York is broken. Various websites, services, and printed listings provide unpredictable levels of quality in terms of useful information about open listings. Often this information is out of date or worse, totally and completely false. Ultimately, the factors that truly determine if someone decides to apply for a rental are only apparent when that individual visits the apartment. This app is designed to cut to the chase by connecting apartment seekers directly with people showing apartments. No more scam craigslist ads, no more expensive brokers, and no more flyers littering our streets.

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• Catherine Young : NYC Uncovered

  

  NYC Uncovered is a trivia-driven scavenger hunt through New York’s hidden and interesting places that goes beyond the usual tourist sites, allowing riddles and trivia to facilitate increased engagement with the site’s history and physical space. After entering his location, the users will be presented with the name, address, directions and map of the first site. When the user is physically in the site, he can begin earning extra points by answering riddles and questions that the app will pose. The user will also have the option of looking through old photos of the site, thus showing him the New York City “that once was.” Additionally, the user can synch his iPhone with other users to play a time-dependent competitive game.

  View presentation slides (PDF)

• Tina Ye : NYC Wish Forest

  

  NYC Wish Forest transforms the arboreal landscape of Manhattan into a virtual forest of wishing trees. Using the NYC street tree census and a location-aware smartphone app, the project allows participants to‚ their wishes on the branches of New York City trees. Geolocation senses when a user is near a particular tree and activates the wishing screen. People can also browse the forest of existing wishes by holding up their phone and navigating a surreal “augmented reality” tree-only map of the city. Finally, people can choose to grant one another’s wishes by establishing contact with the original wisher. In this way, the app encourages serendipitous encounters and the forging of joyful human connections, as well as breathes new life into the beautiful but often-overlooked trees of our city.

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• Erin Moore : Park Smart

  

  New York City motorists have found city parking rules and regulations to be ambiguous and inconsistent and feel that they have no reliable way to communicate their frustrations about unwarranted traffic violations to the public. The Park Smart application uses GPS to confirm parking rules and regulations for a specific spot, and sends the user SMS notifications that remind them of approaching time restrictions on their current parking spot.

  Park Smart also gives users the option to share these comments on a user-generated “Motorist Map.” This map can be accessed by anyone and will give the public a way to search for areas that are prone to high parking violations or have ambiguous signage.

  View presentation slides (PDF)

• Adjoa Opoku : SafeRoute NYC

  

  SafeRoute takes crime statistics, the locations of NYPD police reports and user reported incidents to calculate the safest walking route to any destination in New York City. Safety in New York City is a big concern for new residents, tourists, and anyone who does not particularly know which streets are safe and which they need to avoid. Neighborhoods are also so close here that you may turn a corner and all of a sudden be in a much rougher area. SafeRoute would be most often be used by people walking alone at night and would hopefully guide many people out of harm’s way. A simple solution to big problem.

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• Kristin Breivik : That’s NOT trash! 

  

  It’s not always easy being green. A lot of recyclable materials end up being disposed of as waste because citizens don’t fully understand the complex recycling system… That’s NOT trash! is the app about when, where and how to handle your waste and recyclables to help the citizens of NYC make their city a greener apple. The app will give the user an updated collection schedule based on where the citizen lives. It will also encourage the citizens to reduce waste and recycle more — by explaining how the recycling system works, by revealing recycling rates for the different neighborhoods, and through the general tone of voice of the app. The user can also manage notifications to get a reminder of when to take the trash or recyclables out.

  View presentation slides (PDF)