Blindmaps.org

New York City’s municipal website, NYC.gov, serves more than 35 million unique visitors per year and gets over 250 million page views annually. It’s the primary resource for New Yorkers to accomplish tasks such as paying parking tickets or determining the right school for their child, and for the city to share its initiatives and accomplishments with its citizens. It had not been redesigned since 2003 and, over time had become a disorganized hodgepodge of text and links. It had become difficult for users to find what they needed, and they were increasingly calling 311 (the city’s public help line). The city had already started to invest in a new technology infrastructure and make city data more open and accessible – this was the final effort to bring more power, information, and transparency to the people of New York. Our goal was to create a more intuitive, usable, and efficient experience that would be easy to search and browse, and a delight to use. The experience had to beat accessibility standards and work in many different languages. At a higher level, our goal was for NYC.gov to set the standard for the way governments communicate with and empower their people.

Middle school education can be very challenging for students. They get introduced to a lot of new mathematical and scientific concepts that are often abstract in nature and difficult to understand. The current education system is designed as a one size fits all solution, with a set way to teach and learn these concepts. This approach contrasts with facilitation and letting learning happen organically. What if these concepts could be made more fun and tangible? Would this help the students gain more confidence in learning these concepts, let them explore the subject matter more deeply, and help them develop their own reasoning behind them? The “Smart Lamp” addresses this opportunity space by creating a mixed-reality environment that brings together the advantages of both physical and virtual environments.

A picture is worth 1000 words. Great visuals can enhance, dramatize and even bend the narrative. From historical photos to modern-day digital images made of millions of pixels, images have always been instrumental in shaping our visual understanding of the world around us. As much as they have been instrumental in shaping reality, easy access to image manipulation has also resulted in widespread misinformation. When we can fake anything, honest representation of reality in images has become a complex problem to crack.

Can Metaverse today replace reality? As the global COVID-19 pandemic distanced humans from each other, an expedition for new ways of communication began to rise. The concept of ‘Metaverse’ became widespread as a solution. However, VR interaction methods developed so far are biased toward audiovisual aspects. There should be more elements to reproduce for actual communication. Considering the early concept of VR suggested in Stanley Weinbaum’s 1935 SF novel <Pygmalion Glasses>, which included vision, hearing, touch, heat, and smell, humanity is still half as successful.

100 BPM is a concept that helps to save lives by greatly increasing the success rate of administering compression-only CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to an adult after a cardiac arrest. It does this by giving the rescuer tangible and intuitive feedback through sound and light, for the two most important factors for the success of the procedure: compression depth and frequency of the compression. 100 BPM uses light to create a depth scale illustrating compression depth, and a 100 BPM beat for the user to follow. Sound is used not only to guide the rescuer to administer 100 BPM compressions, but to also manage the stress and emotional stages the rescuer experiences over time.100 BPM comprises of a comfortable central silicone coated pad (housing the main electronic components), through which the compressions are given. This pad sits on a larger fabric base, interwoven with LEDs. The product uses the surface area surrounding the rescuer's hands as an interface space, which is easily visible when in use. Rows of LEDs form an intuitive depth scale surrounding the hands and illuminate in yellow (for too shallow), green (for correct depth) or red (for too deep).

thirteen23 was approached to design and develop the mobile strategy for Barack Obama's 2012 bid for re-election. Working with Obama for America, the team crafted an ambitious set of mobile applications designed to support Obama's large base of campaign volunteers and grassroots supporters. Instead of creating a simple brochure application outlining the President's policies, the team focused on creating a real-time mobile solution to aid campaign organizers and volunteers working in the field.

The Cleveland Museum of Art challenged Local Projects to transform the art museum experience, utilizing technology without diminishing the traditional gallery design. Given this, our studio created a suite of new interactives for Gallery One, including six “Lens” interactives that allow visitors to connect with art in new ways. One features a facial recognition experience that connects visitors’ facial expressions with masterworks from the collection, while another allows visitors to search the collection by drawing different shapes. The Collection Wall is a 40-foot wide multi-touch screen that features over 3,600 artworks in curated layouts, inviting visitors to explore and create their own tours. An iPad application, ArtLens, features these tours through wayfinding, image recognition, and curated content. The main concern was how to make the technology merge with the traditional gallery environment, keeping the main emphasis on the curated artwork and space, while still prompting visitor engagement with the interactives. It was a serious challenge to find the right balance between learning, contextual understanding and fun.

With the service provider Good-Loop, newspaper readers can connect to content moderators to help them slow down the rapid spread of online dis-/misinformation. The fake news in its present form has evolved and become more challenging to identify: Synthetic dis-/misinformation is treated the same as all other internet content, showing up in search results & social media. Without the infrastructure in place, content moderators will find it hard to distinguish between real and A.I. manipulated audio files, texts, images, & videos.

Art museums have long served as epicenters of cultural heritage, human experience, and social gathering. In recent decades, however, new competition for our time and attention has arisen in the form of arcades, malls, and home theaters, not to mention a never-ending stream of digital diversions. Celebrating its 100th year, The Minneapolis Institute of Art rebranded itself as Mia seeking to reengage the public with its world-class permanent collection and world-traveling special exhibits.

Gundulas Stories is an interactive learning environment that enables children to acquire knowledge playfully and improve their sensory and motor skills. The concept combines classic "storytelling" with new technologies. The teacher reads a story that is visualized by a projection. During the story, the children are encouraged to participate and interact physically and linguistically with their movement and language. The main character of these "learning stories" is a tortoise named Gundula. She is an object made of wood which is brought to life by the projection. To read the story and to control the interactions an iPad app was developed. Using the app the teacher can make each and every reading an individual experience while retaining control over the running time of the story. Based on established teaching practices like reading aloud, it's easy to integrate the learning environment into an existing curriculum and does not restrict the educator. By activating all the senses Gundulas Stories provide a holistic learning experience for both children and educators.