Challenge

Among many challenges offered, my team chose "Dictionary of Earth": to develop a creative way for the public and scientists alike to learn the definitions of Earth-related scientific and technical terms, using the power of crowdsourcing.

Vision

A peer-reviewed and mixed reality platform capable of indexing flora, fauna & scientific phenomena throughout the world.

Process

In order to generate inspiration for our final solution we analysed trends pertinent to the "education generation" whom we considered our final user. Our strategy was to be focused on nature indexing, rather than only "Earth-related" such that we could leverage trends of conservationalism and sustainability in order to generate as many users as possible, and in turn harness the power of crowdsourcing. Furthermore, by adapting gamification & mixed reality technologies we could better engage our users, cutting through the confusion of high-level data and the chaos of the information age.

Result

In the 36-hour hackathon we produced a functional identification prototype and a succinct presentation. Our solution, "Dex", came in a smartphone application format, using a Pokemon-Go style mixed reality, which would allow users to tag flora, fauna or scientific phenomona, upload information, generate "knowledge-points", review peer information, take part in NASA citizen missions and become a valued member of the community. By offering a reward-based system we challenged that it would be possible to engage our users, encourage interaction and in turn leverage the crowd to effectively create an index for the world.

My Role

In a group of 3 designers, 1 developer and myself, I had a crucial role in the development of our solution. I employed ideation tools with my team to create the concept that we went with. With respect to the output, I created the UX flow, part of the identification prototype and the final presention design, which I also presented.

Achievements

As my team was made up entirely of Italian people, we conducted all of design and development work in Italian. Our team was awarded 2 out of 3 prizes available at the hackathon including: People’s Choice and one of the Jury’s choices.