NEW YORK Narratives - Christopher Cannonsva.isotope221.com/images/fundamentals/NY-narratives.pdf · New York Narratives app users ... Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators,

SVA IxD Fundamentals Studio

Project Assignment 09NYC Big Apps Final Presentation

New York Narratives app

Christopher CannonNovember 15, 2010

NEW YORKNEW YORKNarratives

Christopher Cannon / Fundamentals Studio / NYC BigApps Project Final / November 15, 2010 Page 2

Overview

PlatformInitially, the New York Narratives app will be available only for the iPhone (who we feel is the innovation leader of the smart phone market) and the iPad (which for now will not have the features that utilize the camera). If this app proves popular on that platform, it will eventually be available for most major phones, including Blackberry, Android, HTC, etc.

User ScenariosThe target audience for this app can be a New York local, a visiting tourist, a history enthusiast, or a photography buff. There are enough interesting facts and stories about NYC that will surprise or entertain life-long residents as well as curious visitors. The following are two possible scenarios in which different people interact with the app in different ways.

A tourist visiting NYC heard about the Flatiron Building, and how it was one of the first skyscrapers built in the city. So he enters the search page of the app to try to find it. Since he doesn’t know offhand who built it, or what tour it is a part of, he simply enters the name in the search field. The tourist sees that the Flatiron Building is part of the ”Turn of the Century” tour. Another tap reveals the other sites included in this tour narrated by Charlie Rose. He arrives at the Flatiron building and starts to walk around it to get different vantage points. As he does so, a vibration from the phone notifies him of his proximity to the same vantage point that the 1903 photo was taken. He then can switch to his phone’s camera mode and use the augmented reality of the “Then + Now” feature, which allows him to overlay and compare the historic scene with the current one. He can take his own photo of the building and upload it to the app’s database of user photos.

Another user scenario can be the New York resident who has lived here for 14 years. She has seen a lot of changes in the city just in the time that she’s lived here. Often she walks down the street looking at newly-constructed buildings and cannot remember what stood there just a few brief years ago. She often goes to the East Village to shop at boutiques and have dinner or drinks with friends and is fascinated to learn what a marginal and dicey place the neighborhood was in the 1970s and 1980s.

While searching for guided tours by categories, she came across an early 1980s Art Scene tour. Since she loves the work of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman and the whole post-punk scene of that time, she found this tour a must-see. Instead of showing historic buildings and monuments in the traditional sense, this tour highlights where certain artists and musicians lived and worked and the (now defunct) cafés, bars and clubs that they frequented. The tour also has an optional audio narrative to it, as told by Debby Harry. At any time, she can rate this tour and share it with her friends.

Social AspectsThe user can share tours or individual buildings with their friends as well as rate them for the app’s other users to see (which affects the popularity listings). For the first version of this app, users do not directly communicate with each other, although that option can be reviewed and explored for future versions. The user’s presence can be displayed on the map, but this feature is optional and the user’s privacy is still upheld.

TangibilityIn addition to the standard tapping and pinching features found in iPhone apps, panoramic photos can be swiped to pan the view. Vibrations alert the user to their proximity of historic photo vantage points (or optional sound alerts through the earbuds). The augmented reality of the Then + Now feature uses the iPhone’s camera mode and takes advantage of its built-in accelerometer to show pictures in different orientations, as well as tilting to overlay historic photos with the current scene.

UbiquityThe user can choose to simply find building or monuments and browse tours to see photos and information (and not even be in NYC). But for a more rich interactive experience, they would use the locator function on the map to find where they are and see what areas of interest are in their vicinity. Vibration alerts, using GPS calculations, notify the user when they are standing in the same spot that a particular historic photo was taken so they can then compare the past and the present.


NY Narratives concept map

NYC DataMine data

Street name dictionaryLibrary exhibitionsMTA dataESRI street base mapsAreas of interest GISNeighborhood names GISBuilding Perimeter OutlinesHistoric district mapsNYC Landmarks / LPC Landmark DistrictsLPC Landmark Interiors / LPC Landmark PointsHeritage Trail markersMap of monuments

New York Narratives features

Locator map (with info filters)MTA infoHistoric buildings/monumentsGuided toursSearch by alphabet, category, address, etc.Search by popularity

New York Narratives app users

User photo uploadsPopularity ratings for buildings/sites/monuments

Miscellaneous data

New York Public Library photo archivesNew York Historic Society

City of the Museum of New YorkNew York Times

Community Service Society of New York

Miscellaneous data

Historic/vintage photosUser photo downloads

Then + Now augmented realityMisc. history/description text

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NY Narratives sitemapVersion two

Key:

Primary levelSeconday levelTertiary levelQuaternary level

* Not available for every item

WELCOME(Logo, random photo)

Homescreen

Global footer icons: Map, Tours, Search, Info

Info(Directions; how to use)

External link to App’s website

App Preferences

Map(Location aware)

“Then + Now” function alerts user when they are in proximity to a historic photo’s vantage point

Then + Now (augmented reality)

Search(within various tours)

Name/Address

Popularity

Categories

Neighborhoods

Architects

Time Period

Tours

Choose tours:

Categories Popularity Alphabetically

Individual Tour

Map Place

Photo Text Audio* Directions Then + Now*

Rate Share


Wireframes

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NY Narratives

Welcome to New York Narratives

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NY Narratives

InfoMap SearchTours

Find a guided tour ›Search Buildings & Landmarks ›NYC Map ›How to use NY Narratives ›

›

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NY Narratives

InfoMap SearchTours

Find a Tour:

Alphabetical ›Popularity ›Category ›

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›

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NY Narratives

InfoMap SearchTours

Tour Categories

Arts ›Literary ›Crime & Punishment ›Gilded Age ›Politics ›Vanishing Streetscapes ›

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Wireframes (continued)

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NY Narratives

InfoMap SearchTours

Crime & Punishment TourLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ullamcorper feugiat sem in est a faucibus. Suspendisse elementum urna sed turpis aliquam porttitor. Aenean arcu est, convallis quis mattis utem, imperdiet nec ante. Donec pellentesque, diam et faucibus viverra, diam nunc ultrices libero vitae inter.

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Start Tour ›

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InfoMap SearchTours

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Joey Gallo gunned down at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy on April 7, 1972

gunngs ClamlaClon Apon A

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InfoMap SearchTours

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Joey Gallo gunned down at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy on April 7, 1972

Praesent rutrum tristique nulla a est vehicula. Maecenas nec gravida atum odio. Integer adipiscing consequat nunc auctor porttitor. Cras elit massa, consectetur a facilisis quis, gravida sit amet arcu. Nulla facilisi. Praesent ullamcorper velit eu elit lacinia fermentum. Mauris semper risus quis massa dignissim sollicitudin. Sed tristique dignissim dui, vitae molestie eros a gravida id. Vivamus faucibus risus vel velit ultricies sit amet pellentesque.

Rate Share AudioFind itFind it

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NY Narratives

InfoMap SearchTours

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Screenshots

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Search InfoMap Tours

Find a guided tour

Where am I?

Search buildings, people, etc.

How to use N.Y. Narratives

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HomeHome

Find a guided tour

New York punk 1970s–1980s

Debby Harry

East Village art scene1980s

Julian Schnabel

The Mob’s greatest hits1920s–1980s

Search InfoMap ToursTours

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New York Punk, 1970s–1980sNew York City had the earliest documented punk rock scene in the United States. Drawing on local influences such bands as The Velvet Underground, Richard Hell and the New York Dolls, punk music developed at clubs such as...

Find a tourFind a tour

Start tourSStart tourStart tourStart tour

CBGBs


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Cro-Mags, CBGBs 1987

Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, CBGBs was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the Patti Smith


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Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the Patti Smith Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones, The Voidoids, The Cramps, Blondie, The Shirts, and Talking Heads. In later years, it would mainly become known for Hardcore punk with bands such as Agnostic Front, Bad Brains, Murphy's Law, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Sick of It All, and Youth of Today performing there.

ShareRateFind it

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Map

3

4

Search InfoToursMap

BackBack

CBGBs

Some Recordss

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Map

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Search InfoToursMap

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CBGBs

Some Records

4Some Recordss

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You are near the vantage point of a historic photo

Screenshots (continued)


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Search InfoMap Tours Search InfoToursMap

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MapMap





Design Process

Original processI started this app idea from my love of New York City, its history and my interest in its ever-changing streetscapes. As stated before, it hopefully would be of interest to both locals and tourists alike. An iPhone/iPad app such as the Museum of London’s StreetMuseum shows an early start, but I feel lacks the interactivity and technological innovation that could make it more interesting. While planning this app, I was very conscious of feature creep and tried to find a balance between relevant functions and simplicity. I was also wary of augmented reality, fearing it might be too much of a gimmick and not very useful. Leland Rechis made the observation that in this context, augmented reality might find a useful purpose in juxtaposing the old and the new. For now, I feel the app’s features justify its goal of giving people a rich, detailed history of New York in words, photos and narration.

As I worked on this in more detail, I realize there is a lot of questions that still need to be answered: the exact flow from screen to screen, navigation issues, the context in which certain features or icons appear, etc. Other considerations I need to develop further are how much would this app’s features be user-driven: are users given a platform to design their own tours to present to the public? As the app’s creator, how much control do I want over its content?

Revised processSince meeting with Allison and Carrie, my NYC Big Apps idea became an exercise in editing out extraneous and redundant features. There was some expression in our group that it might be veering towards scope creep. Originally, I intended New York Narratives to showcase individual buildings and monuments throughout the city. Then I added the feature of narrated guided tours to add a voice (literally and figuratively) to the rich history and forgotten stories of NYC. Now I was faced with the choice of leaving both features or editing one of them out.

After dwelling on it for a while, it became an easy decision to delete the first part. Compared to the tours, the individual buildings and monuments seemed a bit dry and academic. The strength of New York Narratives is the offbeat and individualistic choice of tours: from the East Village art scene of the 1980s to the punk scene of CBGB’s heyday to the bloody history of organized crime. Each tour is narrated by someone famous who is an expert on or has experienced the tour’s history (Debby Harry on the 1970s punk scene, Martin Scorsese on the Mafia’s rise and fall, etc.)

The main point I learned from this exercise of paring down functions and features is that an app can do a lot of things moderately well, or it could do one thing excellently. I hope I chose the latter.

Documents

NEW YORK Narratives - Christopher Cannonsva.isotope221.com/images/fundamentals/NY-narratives.pdf · New York Narratives app users ... Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators,