Below you will find the projects I have been working on for this semester!
Light Pollution
This website serves to inform its visitors about the effects of artificial light pollution facing all living things on earth, including us. For billions of years, all life has relied on Earth’s predictable rhythm of day and night. Humans have radically disrupted this cycle by lighting up the night. Cities across the globe are converting their existing street lighting to blue-rich white LED (including Providence, RI). They expect the new lighting will remain in service for several decades. Time is running out to influence the decisions and prevent outcomes that are bad for people, plants, wildlife and the night sky. This site includes many links to further research and findings on the topic. Both web and mobile version.
PVD 311
The ultimate goal of this project was to redesign the PVD311 app. This app allows residents of the city of Providence to report issues within their own neighborhoods, or issues anywhere the whole city. Giving power to the people of Providence, the PVD311 app seeks to help improve the quality of life for all those who dwell full-time and part-time in this city.
The original home screen design for the app does not catch my eye. This screen is going to set the tone for the whole app so it should grab the users attention. The existing screen for the app looks very outdated. Not only is the design outdated, but the page looks very static, like it has not been updated in a long time. I designed my page with a simple, yet elegant color palette, that is more visually pleasing. The first page had two big buttons on it, making the usability very easy and simple. I designed a simple set of icons for the home screen, in order to give the city some character.
The app works by finding your location and then letting you report an issue form where you are, or finding a location. But the advantage of repotting it where you are is that you can instantly take and upload a photo to give with your issue report. I have streamlined the report submitting process as much as possible, to try make it very easy and quick to use.
There is also a more social side to the app, as you can see other issues people have reported around your area, or any issue in the city and check up on its status. You can add an issue to your profile and follow what happens to that case. You can sort the content by list, map or images.
DON’T USE MEDIA TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD
I made a series of mini sights for my final, some of which I have plans for to further develop. The first one is called, Breaking News and is inspired by the statistician Hans Rosling: “Don’t use the media to understand the world.” I have the tag line of ‘breaking news’ running across the top and bottom of the page and then headlines from a news source’s homepage juxtaposed with the images from the same news sources homepage. On the side you can switch between news sources to see how this changes the information. I would like to figure out how to import the daily headlines from news sources (the API exists), so then you could use the site as a weird place to get actual news information from. Also add a wider selection of media sources to choose from. For the second site, called Headlines, I made a side where depending on how you resize the browser the news sources you can see changes. It has the daily headlines from these sites. It is meant to represent the political spectrum and highlight the political bias of where you are getting you news from. I made another version, called Sources, where it is only the links to the news sources, rather than the headlines. I think the headlines are more interesting in terms of content. I would like to continue with this project and turn it into a kind of archive for the news, which allows you to travel back in time and see past headlines. The third site is called, Movable News, and is a site, which when opened is only a bunch of headlines piled up onto of each other. You have to move around the pile of headlines in order to make any of them legible. It is a comment on how much media content we are expose to today, and how much of this we actually take in, or is useful to us. The last site is called, Area 51, and is talking about the influence that the news can have on you, using Area 51 as an example. It is a powerful conspiracy theory that captivated the minds of so many, and some still believe today. It is a very interesting case study in terms of the power that the media can have, when trying to make you believe in something that doesn’t exist.
PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP
Health Food Store with a large selection of fresh organic and locally grown produce and vegetables, grass fed beef, pasture raised poultry in Brooklyn, New York.
I VOTED
I made an augmented reality sticker. It appears like a normal sticker, but when you move your phone in front of it the sticker changes to any design that you want it to be, making it totally customizable in selfies you want to take for any online post, to show you’ve voted. Would also work for mailing option of voting.