Volley: Collaborative Animation App Concept for Microsoft Research
For web: Volley imagined For Xbox/Kinect: Volley imagined Last summer, I interned at Microsoft Research at the Future Social Experience lab (FUSE). Working with design mentor Richard Zaragoza, I spent 3 months intensively brainstorming, conceptualizing, designing, and pitching a concept for an online collaborative animation app called Volley. A year after my summer’s work, I...
Graduation and a Tale of Revenge
After 2 eventful years in the Big Apple at one of the nation’s technologically advanced graduate program, I finally finished. Published the thesis, presented my research, and now I’m packing my bags to head to Microsoft Research as a summer design intern in Fuse Labs. But, this blog post, isn’t really about that. It’s about...
Ready for ITP Thesis Presentation : Doki Doki Dash
Doki Doki Dash is my thesis idea that I conceptualized in Jan. 2011., a culmination of my final work at NYU ITP that touches on mobile, gaming, and social/skill play. It’s a prototype of a mobile fitness app that uses a mystery game to get players outdoors, solving crime and getting fit. In the game,...
Zombie Caller
Zombie Caller is a phone game where the player’s voice powers their zombie to eat brains on screen. Players call into the on-screen phone number. Once connected, players can speak into their phone, preferably moaning “BRAAAAAINS!” to help their lil’ zombie cross the screen, gobbling brains. Say “BRAINS” slowly and the lil’ zombie slumbers across...
First Crack at Doki Doki Dash (1st Draft of Thesis Complete)
Left: New User prompt by in-game character, the Big Chief. Right:. Set initial fitness actions, choose to start out walking or jogging. Here’s a series of snapshots of my app under design, Doki Doki Dash. Thesis abstract that’s under development: Doki Doki Dash is a mobile fitness game app that uses a mystery to get...
Doki Doki Dash: Meet My Game Characters
So, what is Doki Doki Dash? Imagine a mystery game but instead of hunting criminals on-screen, your detective skills pay off by pounding the pavement, literally. Doki Doki Dash is a mobile exercise game I am designing for my thesis at NYU ITP. It’s a crime-solving game meets exercise app. I want to inject a...
Designing for Mobile Apps: The Process
Spending a Sat evening listening to this webinar: How to Design and Prototype for Mobile Devices led by Amir Khella and Josh Clark. I decided to jot my notes that I found really interesting from a user experience/product design focus from this 80-min. podcast. Mobile Design Context What is the STORY OF YOUR APP? What...
Week 6: Thesis Update
Wow, amazing what what 2 weeks can do. I came up with my thesis name, refined my game concept, started banging out a user experience flow…meet my thesis, Doki Doki Dash! (Website is pending). I decided to revise my thesis concept on 2 points: 1) Focus on the game/user experience over coding. I’d rather spend...
Seeing Project MAMA’s idea live on in other Mobile Health Initiatives
Last semester, my team and I proposed and pitched an emergency mobile health system to the Unicef Innovations team. Stemming from NYU’s ITP coursework, Design for Unicef, we examined the issues of mobile health from the framework of emergency humanitarian deployment. The result was: Code MAMA (Mobile Assistance for Medical Aid) is a mobile outreach...
Thesis Progress: Week 4
Progress this week: Game Research - Interviewed two leading game designers, Adam Simon and Michael Dory of SocialBomb about my thesis idea. They led me to check out Nike’s The Grid and further inspection of Area/Code’s games and other outdoor games created by ITPers. - Continued adding to my thesis bibliography by researching user motivation...
Thesis: User Testing
This week: I gathered the brave players for my game test at Washington Square Park. Their test was simple. Bring their smartphones and play the audio file on their running app. The users were told to follow through the instructions/feedback heard in the 4.5 minute audio file. As a user researcher, I stayed on the...
Thesis Ideation (Over and Over) : Week 2
(This is me back when I used to run more regularly) So far, I’ve tentatively named my Thesis as “Fitbotics: Gaming Your Way to a Faster, Stronger You.” My goal is create a mobile game that motivates people (non-exercise types) to run. Get gamers to work out and take them off their couch and out...