Being productive and managing your schedule is difficult, more importantly time management shouldn’t take up more of what little time you already have.  Our team has built a smart scheduling app we like to call COG, which takes the existing events in your Google calendar and finds places you can fit in items from a task list you have created. Implementing the idea of smart scheduling means COG also learns from your scheduling patterns (overestimating time, frequented locations, recurring events) and refactoring those observations to create an even more accurate plan for you, even when you might not realize you could be more efficient. Finally, COG is a way for people to build self-awareness about their own scheduling habits and how they manage their time. Through preliminary user testing we have found that COG is not only beneficial but “quickly becomes an everyday part of [a user’s] life.

Most of us have experienced the frustration of not knowing what to order in a Chinese restaurant, due to limited information on their menus, and as a result, end up choosing the typical “Chicken Chow Mein” dish over and over. To solve this dilemma, we developed Dining Menu, a web based application that displays additional information of local Chinese restaurant menu items, to help consumers to be more informed before they decide on their order. Specifically, our web app supports filtering capabilities, displays ingredients used in a menu item, as well as other health and allergy related information, and can be accessed anywhere and anytime.

Boeing is continuously looking for ways to enhance the customer journey at its Customer Experience Center (“CEC”), where aircraft priced at hundreds of millions of dollars are marketed to airline executives worldwide. At the CEC, customers are given a tour of airliner mockups, which relies heavily on verbal descriptions, limiting the amount of information that can be communicated. For our project, we conceptualized and prototyped a location-aware application for client use throughout the tour. This app will provide customers detailed descriptions of Boeing aircraft by seamlessly transmitting information tailored for specific airlines relative to the user’s location within the tour. Utilizing a combination of Wi-Fi triangulation, Geofencing, and NFC technologies, the intuitive user interface displays images of alternate interiors layouts, configurations for lighting, colors and setups, as well as data such as fuel prices and measurements automatically relevant to the user’s location. Creating a seamless way to share information.

Ordering a drink in a busy bar is stressful, time-­‐consuming and claustrophobic. With Fastab, users order drinks from their mobile phones and receive push notifications when their orders are ready. This eliminates the need to wait in line and compete for the bartender’s attention. Because payments and tips are sent through Fastab, bartenders can spend more time making drinks and serving customers, and less time processing payments. After surveying 75 customers who frequent bars, 47% of them felt that their favorite bars were inadequately staffed. Fastab’s improved efficiency alleviates this pain point without the need for additional staffing.  While Fastab is designed for bar environments, there are several other applications for the technology including restaurants, nightclubs and sports arenas.

Fighting Words is a collaboration with students and faculty from the Theater, and Film and Media Arts departments at the University of Utah. Actors performed dramatic readings of quotes from American Revolutionary War pamphlets printed on both sides of the Atlantic. This project brought students into the library where they experienced rare books through their own disciplines. Videos of the dramatic readings accompany text and images from the original books on a multimedia website, www.fightingwordsonline.org. Viewers are guided through the exhibition in chronological order, learning about the origins, conflicts, and ultimate conclusions of the American Revolution from the words of the people who lived it. A dynamic website connects users to material and facilitates experiences with rare books outside the library.

Among the many online services that provide communication channels for groups, there is a lack of singular services that provide users a way to easily interact with each group in one place. In order to communicate with their respective groups, 25 out of 27 people we surveyed online use four or more services, including email and various social media sites. Coordinating so many different services across multiple groups is tedious, challenging, and often results in important information being overlooked or lost. GroupLoop is a single interface that integrates all of the functions users require to effectively communicate with each of their groups. Users can send private or group messages, access contact information for each group member, upload shared multimedia, add events in a group calendar, and participate in forums. They can even view information for multiple groups at once. Feedback from GroupLoop users who have tested these functions in order to communicate with their groups have found it to be “helpful,” “convenient,” and “a service they would like to use.”

Approximately 17 percent of American adults report some degree of hearing loss. Such hearing problems can lead to frustrations and inconveniences in everyday life while listening to or communicating with others. Our team has created a free mobile application, Hear Rite, which diagnoses hearing impairments and provides an economical alternative to costly hearing aids. The first segment of our application takes the user through a hearing assessment, analyzes the user’s hearing capacity and provides feedback on their results. The second part of our application functions as a hearing aid, filtering out undesired pitches and tones while adjusting sound output using a built-in equalizer. The hearing aid utilizes the hearing test results to provide a custom tailored hearing aid to the user along with presets that cater to general sound environments, such as a private conversation or a large lecture hall. Through a series of user studies, we have shown that Hear Rite could be a cost-free alternative hearing aid for people with simple hearing impairment.

Websites that provide volunteering and donating opportunities often lack a centralized hub for communicating, displaying, and tracking the progress of service projects.  Most organizations have a way of keeping track of projects internally; however, with underserved communities, there may be a lack of resources to enable the efficient monitoring of project development and to obtain expertise on a project topic.  Imara is a web platform that promotes a social and collaborative atmosphere allowing volunteers, community members, donors and subject matter experts to exchange knowledge and contribute up-to-date information on the progress of projects.  This information allows project members to identify areas that need more resources, funding, expertise, or volunteer effort.  Users who evaluated Imara stated that it delivers a simple, informative, and engaging way to get involved with service projects.

Each year, approximately 2 million new immigrants from all over the world arrive in the United States. These newcomers can often find themselves feeling isolated due to language and cultural barriers, which make meeting new people and acclimating to their new environment especially challenging. We built an events based social networking website, called Immingle, designed specifically with the needs of this group in mind. Our solution helps immigrants who share a common language or homeland connect with one another through creating and attending local events. Events can range anywhere from small knitting group gatherings to large cultural music festivals, and can be created by new immigrants, established immigrants, or even local organizations. By providing a resource for both recent and established immigrants alike to connect with one another, Immingle helps newcomers meet friends who have shared similar experiences. These peers can help them overcome some of the challenges that transitioning to life in a new country can pose. Our solution aims to strengthen local immigrant communities by providing a platform with very low barriers to access that encourages making new friends, building support networks, and getting involved in the local community.