An interactive app that creates an engaging and affordable experience to visitors of Downtown Culver City.
Design Research
Mobile Design
UX/UI Design
Design Challenge
For this project, we were tasked with selecting a site in Los Angeles to explore and discover potential issues visitors might face when visiting the area. Our goal was to create experiences and interactions that will not only solve the issue, but would change the way visitors engage with the space.
My Role
Team
User Research
UX Design
UI Design
Branding
Angel Tolentino
Celia Choi
Michelle Cheng
Year
Length
Fall 2023
16 weeks
Problem
Downtown Culver City is known for its rich history and involvement in the film industry, with a vibrant and diverse community that sought affordability and proximity to other hubs in Los Angeles. With the influx of tech companies and booming studios, this diversity in socioeconomic status is decreasing due to the rise in rent and cost-of-living.
An interactive app that provides an affordable experience and highlights key features to visitors and locals of Downtown Culver City. This app would be an integration with Snapchat, offering weekly challenges that highlight historical landmarks in the area, and would partner with local businesses to offer discount rewards for successfully completed missions. Users are free to discover the area and play a digital scavenger hunt to unlock unique stickers.
Solution
We first visited the location to observe how people navigated the area. We documented our visit through photos, videos, and took notes of the use of the space, wether it was commercial or available for leisurely use. After our field research, we conducted interviews and secondary research to further understand Culver City.
Research & Observations
Open and inviting green space at The Culver Steps in Downtown Culver City
Pedestrian and micro-mobility friendly design
Easily accessible through public transportation
Ken (she/they)
23, Artist
“I’ve lived in Culver City since I was a toddler. I loved going to Downtown as a kid but as I’ve gotten older it’s harder to go because of how expensive it’s gotten. There are a couple places still affordable, like the thrift store, but there’s so little now.”
Key Insights
1) In 2021, Culver City implemented Dutch intersections for pedestrian and biker safety, and a designated bus lane. Thanks to these improvements to the city’s infrastructure, micro-mobility increased 70% and cycling increased 40% from the previous year.
2. We found polarizing discourse through related social media hashtags and discovered a divide between those who praised the economic growth, and those who criticized how it displaced residents due to rising costs.
3. Due to the influx of tech companies,
the cost-of-living in Culver City is 65% higher than the national average, with an average monthly rent of $3,950.
We began ideating sketches for the missions journey and how it would integrate with Snapchat’s existing interface. We were interested in the nature of a digital scavenger hunt and how we could illustrated collected stickers versus discoverable stickers.Originally, Culvie the Lion would act as an augmented reality way-finding companion.
Wireframe Sketches
Scavenger Hunt Map, Mission Flow, Fun Facts and Coupon Interface
Augmented Reality Interface
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Final Digital Product Experience
Once at Downtown Culver City, Snapchat users will receive a
notification to try their new feature -
Snap Pass x Culver City.
First time users will be walked through the app features and how to start their first mission.
After our research, we identified three key goals for our product design.
Here is a breakdown of how these goals are fulfilled throughout our app:
REFLECTION
We were grateful to present our concept to Raag Harshavat, Augmented Reality Developer Relations Lead at Snapchat, and Guild Copeland, Co-Founder, Sisu, Inc, who gave us detailed feedback on our project.
Augmented Reality Integration
We designed a mascot for Culver City called Culvie the Lion, an AR companion that functions through Snapchat’s augmented reality lens function to give fun facts of certain landmarks throughout Downtown Culver. We could explore a different approach where the AR element would be utilized for way-finding.
Scalability
Our goal was to design Snap Pass x Culver City with the possibility of expansion to other cities in the future, as we thought this would be a great feature for other walkable cities across the world such as New York or Paris. We received feedback that Culver City is a perfect text site for our concept, but that we could’ve started building the app for other locations simultaneously to consider how the scalability aspect of the app could work
Content
While designing the weekly missions, we did not consider how the app would be updated weekly, or the possibility of running out of new locations to highlight every week. A potential solution would be to create special missions based on holidays, or events that might be happening locally. Another avenue for content would be to utilize user-generated content to keep the app up to date and users engaged.