Urban Harmony
Seattle Design Festival, Intern @ NBBJ
Lead UX Designer
Why Urban Harmony?
In addition to the direct health impacts of COIVID-19, the pandemic also created another problem: isolation. Many felt disconnected from family and friends, often only leaving the house for essential purposes. This led to many people feeling disconnected from their cities and communities. While nothing could replace the benefits of “normal in-person life,” emerging digital tools can play a role in building community and connection.
For the “About Time” Seattle Design Festival Submission, a team of architects and developers from NBBJ wanted to tackle a small part of this problem by creating a new digital tool to share and experience sounds of the city. Urban Harmony Seattle allows users to create, listen to and “view” the sounds of their neighborhood in an ever-changing audio / visual experience. For ease of viewing and recording on the go, the application was developed as a mobile-first website.
Design Process
As the lead UX designer, I worked with NBBJ architects to develop the story and concept for the mobile website. I then developed user flows and paper prototypes to get feedback from developers on our concepts. I worked with a team of developers on designing several iterations of wireframes and adjusting them to Vue specifications. All in just a month prior to the festival!
How It Works
Urban Harmony Seattle is an app that allows users to create, listen to and “view” the sounds of their neighborhood, in an ever-changing audio and visual experience.
Each sound appears on the map as an iconic radial soundwave, which encapsulates a piece of audio in a single image. The radial soundwave can become an interpretive image of harmony and togetherness, as each bar comes together to create a cohesive image. The user can explore an area by selecting an icon on the map to listen to the sound associated with it and see the time it was recorded.
A) RECORD
When selecting “record,” users record a short audio snippet which will be time-stamped and geotagged to their location.
B) LISTEN
Use the map to navigate areas in the city to find sounds and use the list view to listen to audio diary of sounds on the map.
C) Refine
Narrow your sounds by date using the filter function. Also choose the option to show or hide your sounds on the map.