Applying for an apartment rental involves a lot of uncertainty in addition to a steep application fee. With Findigs+, you can know your chance of getting approved before submitting an application.
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This project aims to design and develop a new listing service for Findigs.com, a rental technology startup based out of New York City. A combination of machine learning algorithms and techniques is used to implement a state-of-the-art hybrid-based recommendation system. Using data from past user applications, the model can determine a new renter’s chance of success for a given apartment. The baseline accuracy achieved is 75% using a random forest model. This recommendation service will increase transparency for both tenants and landlords, improving the quality of applications on the platform.
Tags:#MachineLearning#ProductDesign#ApartmentRentals
Shirley Liu | 天天有余 (tiān tiān yǒu yú): WeChat Mini Program For Reducing Food Waste One Day At A Time
The 天天有余 (tiān tiān yǒuyú) WeChat Mini-Program helps organizations take action against food waste by providing a mobile platform for people to save delicious surplus food through a give and take system.
I investigate how interactive media can raise awareness on the issue of food waste and also bring about long term change to reduce the amount of food waste generated. I designed Tiān Tiān Yǒu Yú, a WeChat Mini Program that aims to address the issue of food waste in China. The name of the mini program is inspired by the Chinese expression 年年有余 (nián nián yǒuyú）that is used to wish people of ample surplus by the end of every year. Thus, tiān tiān yǒuyú is a play on this saying – as this mini program will give people a solution to deal with food surplus that accumulates daily. We know that more than 35 million tons of food is wasted in China annually. The issue is so extreme that landfills are reaching maximum capacity and are unable to meet pollution-control standards, which can lead to major environmental, hygiene, and safety problems. In the past two years, China has launched campaigns, passed anti-food waste laws, and issued an action plan; all in effort to safeguard the country’s food security and reduce food waste. Researchers have explained how in this digital age, mobile applications play a key role in reaching and engaging consumers. This transformation has led to the development of mobile solutions in support of lessening food waste and increasing the stability of food supplies. This project gives organizations a mobile platform to contribute to the fight against food waste with just a few clicks. I designed a system and mini program for users to donate perfectly delicious leftovers that would then notify other people nearby in their organization to be taken away. Tiān Tiān Yǒu Yú empowers people to take action right from the convenience of their phone. The clickable Figma prototype demonstrates the different functionalities built into the system and the demo website promotes how organizations can get involved with the mini program.
Figma Prototype
Website for 天天有余
Github: Code for Website
Tags:#Mobile#UI/UXDesign#SocialGood
Alex Wang | Stonality: A music matching/making video game
Stonality is a puzzle video game that takes musical input and plays like a music matching game, but also gives the player freedom to create their own melodic sequences for strategic play.
Ever since the initial release of Beatmania back in 1999, rhythm games have been dominated by a standardized experience design known as the “note highway” where notes move across the screen towards the player, cueing the player to click buttons at a predetermined rhythmic interval as if playing an instrument. After the success of popular titles such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, many educators saw potential in this design and developed music training applications that play like a conventional rhythm game. However, this type of interaction is purely music-matching-based, involving no creativity and freedom that is essential to the expressive nature of music. Research in game-based learning suggests that too little or too much freedom are both unideal for the player, so a balance between clear instructions and room for interpretation is crucial for maintaining a comfortable learning environment.
I propose to incorporate both music-matching and music-making interactions in a seamless gameplay experience, giving the player a set of musical tasks while also opening up opportunities for improvisation and creativity. Stonality is a music puzzle game where the player plays a match-three puzzle game while going through a musical performance-like experience. The number keys 1-5 on the keyboard match 5 different colors and 5 different musical pitches, clicking a number will generate a colored block and generate the colors corresponding tone as if playing an instrument. The game generates different sets of color combinations that tasks the player to play corresponding notes at a specific timing, just like a conventional rhythm game, but the game also leaves blank spots for the player to fill in their own preferred notes. The game further enhances the learning process of these explorative phases in the game by giving clear and definitive rules to evaluate these player chosen notes, adding more significance to these choices as opposed to relying purely on the players musical aesthetic preference.
Tags:#Music#Gameplay#Education
Jennifer Cheung | Love Languages: Animating misunderstood emotions in Chinese American families
“Love Languages” is a web-based interactive animation that contrasts actions with misunderstood expressions of love between me and my Chinese immigrant mother. By using mouse interactions to switch between hearing my mother’s and my own voice overs while watching the animation, users can uncover contrasting Chinese and American emotional perspectives on the same experiences.
Differences in Chinese and American cultural conventions can cause conflicts in how Chinese immigrant parents and their American born children communicate emotions. With lower levels of acculturation, immigrant parents adhere closer to Chinese cultural norms of controlling emotions to maintain stability and harmony in the family unit. This leads to a pattern of expressing emotions through actions instead of words, such as providing and sacrificing for the family. However, their children are socialized in American culture, where they learn that emotions should be openly vocalized and heard to promote their individual well being. The contrast between parents’ action-based emotional expressions and children’s verbal-based emotional expressions can cause misunderstandings of each others’ intentions, thus diminishing mutual empathy and exacerbating intergenerational conflict.As an American born child of two Chinese immigrants, my evolving relationship with my parents has shown the importance of open emotional communication in forging closer and healthier bonds. “Love Languages” was made to illuminate the common struggle that parents’ and children’s face to connect as they rely on two different modes of expressing their emotions. It aims to create intergenerational mutual understanding by validating both parents’ and children’s emotional and cultural experiences. The use of animation and two concurrent voice overs can represent my family’s emotional relationship through the contrast of visual actions and hidden feelings my mother and I exchange. Visually, the animation shows the common act of slicing and eating fruit as a simple everyday act of service. However, buried feelings behind this action are revealed through two narrations that the audience can switch between by panning their mouse to either side of the screen. These concurrent points of view between me and my mother convey that the root of intergenerational conflict lies in the miscommunication of love. For Chinese American viewers with similar experiences, seeing and hearing emotions vocalized will hopefully serve as a first step towards building mutual empathy and mending intergenerational relationships.
Dongxu Xie | Dongbei Portrait : Not Sure How Long You’ve been away, or Where You’re Going.
An immersive experience design in physical exhibition about Dongbei culture
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My research mainly focuses on how northeast Chinese living overseas build online communities through media (short video platforms) and draw Internet groups through the media. In essence, it reflects the short video creation of overseas people seeking cultural identity through the Internet, and forming online communities. I want to express the current situation of population loss in northeast China and arouse the audience’s attention and reflection.The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first part introduces traditional customs of Northeast China, documentary of workers and short video on Internet platform through three screens of different sizes. Mobile phone screens, television screens, and movie projections correspond to depictions of the Northeast in different periods. To show the audience the media’s regional expression and the current situation of northeast China. The second part is the reconstruction of life in northeast China, providing an immersive experience through the return of interior life scenes, cotton clothes with special patterns, textbooks used to stick on the wall, yellow peach cans with special meaning. Different items are placed to reflect the particularity, and the video projection of life in northeast China is played in the central part. Used to explain the past living habits and daily work of northeast people.This exhibition is open to all groups of people. When visitors visit the complete exhibition, they will have a basic understanding of the current situation of northeast China and its culture.