Industry Project

Worked with a team of Web Developers and Data Scientists to create a product that gathered and reported true cost of living data in New York City
View Prototype

BrainStation hosted an Industry Day project where students from each class worked together on a hackathon-stype project. We were given the task of helping the NYC Mayor's Office with gathering accurate Cost of Living data for New York City.

Timeline: 24 hours
Role: UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Software: Figma, FigJam, Canva
Project Type: Sprint
Meet the SquaDDD
Problem Space
Cost of living is a problem for thousands of New Yorkers. In order to mitigate the disenfranchisement caused by this, it is essential to have accurate measures of cost of living
How to collect data securely
SquaDDD’s product must be able to collect data securely from users
Lack of a highly accessible tool
SquaDDD’s product must more accurately reflecting the cost of living in NYC
How to provide equitable Data
We aim to provide users with intuitive interfaces that are widely accessible.
Terms to Know
Basket
A set of categories that make up the total cost of living; ex: food, transportation, healthcare...
Input User
The individuals that data will be gathered data from when they scan the subway QR code and complete the survey
Output User
The Mayor’s office staff, or other government employee who will use the product to produce cost of living reports
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - followed for design aspects of our product
How Might We...
enable the New York City Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity to better understand the true cost of living for all New York City residents using an accessible and user-centered digital product?
Data Challenges
Data is not currently uniformly available at the zip code or neighborhood level, nor is it all up to date. Different data resources also overlap.
Basket Challenges
Not all basket categories are created equal
Number Challenges
Numbers alone don’t currently tell the whole story with cost of living and what effects it.
Data Solutions
How data was collected and consolidated to output a cost of living map
Persona: New York Resident
Persona: Mayor’s Office Data Analyst

Design Process

Subway Ad

User Scans Subway Ad barcode

In this scenario, our user sees the ad above while riding the subway for a free ride if he completes the survey. He opens his smartphone's camera and scans the QR code on the ad.

User is prompted to take survey
Then our user is prompted by a popup to take the Cost of Living Survey.

User starts filling out survey

Once the user has selected "Take Survey", they are taken to this screen, where the beginning of the Cost of Living survey begins. The user then fills out the following screens with their information. After completing the survey, the free ride information is sent to their email address that was collected on this screen.

Key Learnings
Communication
We learned the importance of communicating often and clearly with one another
Team Work
We all learned more about the other disciplines and their respective software applications
Time Management
We learned the importance of properly managing our time within a strict time constraint
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