LENS is an image-scanning based Android application that uses crowd sourced/rated information to create an objective, fluid experience. Users scan 2D media in the real world with a smartphone camera to instantly retrieve related information. Our design was generated through market research, interviews, task analyses and an iterative prototyping/testing process. Results from feedback indicate that users aren’t willing to spend much time looking up information while on the move. LENS will always be faster than competing applications because it doesn’t require the user to do any superfluous work.

Adults spend too much time alone instead of flourishing in interpersonal environments. Young adults age 18 to 24 spend an average of three hours per day watching television, and an additional six hours monitoring online media. The same age group enjoys merely three hours a day interacting with their peers in a social setting. We have engineered Let’s Do Something, a comprehensive mobile application designed for the Android platform that presents the user with an intuitive tool to suggest social and active ideas in the Seattle area.  From abstract art to weightless free falling, our database is already populated with over 50 unique and interesting adventures. Through usability research we have already found that one in three people have found activities they haven’t indulged in, but would love to experience. Our peers have voted Let’s Do Something as more intuitive, better architected, and ultimately more useful than similar existing applications. What separates Let’s Do Something from our competitors is the ability for our fan base to submit fun and enticing ideas to our moderated and ever growing database. Our application doesn’t suggest mundane and ordinary plans like our rivals. Instead, we offer memorable outings and experiences that even the most reserved person will be excited to participate in. The Let’s Do Something application is the key for our generation to rebuild relationships with their loved ones, have fun with friends, and exercise important interpersonal skills lost in this day and age.

Many of us today use multiple forms of social media like Facebook and Twitter. But as of now, we do not have an environment online that lets us conveniently record our memories and relive them later on in the future. Though services like Facebook attempt to do this, their focus is to connect people through social networking instead of storing memories. So our team has come up with a new website called Mmentos, where the main focus is for people to record the precious moments of their lives and to go back and relive them in the future. Whether it is photos, videos, words, or even Tweets, Mmentos lets people organize their keepsakes neatly online and lets them share these moments with their loved ones later on in the future. Because Mmentos has a simple and clean interface, people will be able to easily store their memories and show them off to loved ones for years to come.

Mood Journal is a web application that allows mental health patients to log their daily moods and behavior in order to help their therapists to better treat them. This project was inspired by the observation that when patients arrive in mental health clinics, they are given questionnaires to fill out that ask them about moods and behavior in the past two weeks. Considering how fleeting and variable moods can be in such a long span of time, it’s impossible for an individual to accurately answer these questions. Therapists often rely on these questionnaires to both diagnose the patient and to help guide the therapy session. It therefore becomes crucial that the responses are as true to the patient’s state as possible. Mood Journal addresses this issue by prompting users to fill out a 3 question, scaled survey every day, asking about their mood, physical energy level and enjoyment of activities. If their survey score is below a certain threshold then they are asked to fill out a short questionnaire that further inquires about their behavior for that day. Mood Journal displays past logs to patients for them to observe trends in their mood and also allows them to send messages to their therapist if they have concerns. In addition, if a patient is experiencing an extreme low, they are redirected to the necessary resources while the therapist is notified. We hope that with our tool, mental health services will run more smoothly and accurately than ever.

As the largest bicycling club in the U.S., Cascade Bicycle Club has more than 15,000 members and organizes more than 1,200 free rides a year. Obviously, simplifying the process of signing up rides and strengthening the connections between Cascade Bicycle Club and its members become quite important. Our team worked with Forum One Communications to develop a mobile web app for Cascade Bicycle Club. This app streamlines communication between Cascade Bicycle Club and its members, and it also provides a better experience of exploring, researching and registering free daily rides. Additionally, it could help Cascade Bicycle Club attract more people joining free daily rides, and leading healthier lives.

Finding parking in Seattle has always proved to be a significant challenge. We, Team Wildfish, created Seattle ParkIt to address this issue. We have developed an Android application that will allow users to search for and locate parking in the Seattle area based on when and where they would like to park. Basing our design choices around user testing, our app is designed to make parking fast and easy. We are leveraging the Seattle Department of Transportation’s parking sign database as a data source. Initially we have an app designed for parking in Seattle, but ideally this can be expanded to cities both around the state and the country.

In a world without Patchwork, companies that operate unethically continue to make profits, and companies that make ethical choices are not rewarded enough. With no reliable way to investigate what really goes on inside corporations, consumers make purchasing decisions only based on prices and personal reviews. Enter Patchwork: a site that enables people to share, discuss, and rate facts related to companies and products. When a user finds an article pertaining to compelling positive or negative practices of a business or organization, they can post the article to Patchwork for others to discuss and rate. Patchwork will encourage companies to improve their practices or keep up their good work in an effort to attain the highest possible score. We conducted surveys and user studies and found that users would like to know more about what goes on behind the scenes of companies and products. Patchwork will enable people to be more knowledgeable consumers in a world where things are not always what they seem.

Permazine, the Holdout Digital Zine Library Project, was born out of a collective desire to not only capture and archive valuable cultural information while maintaining the integrity of the zine medium, but also due to a significant need for increased accessibility to cultural and political information. Accessible on the web, its use is promoted through the center’s very popular free-use computers. A notable feature of this library built on the Drupal CMS platform is that its content is constructed not only by the Holdout Bookstore Collective and its volunteers, but also by a greater community of organizations and individuals who have something to contribute - its content is a reflection of community-wide interests. Paramount to the Holdout Digital Zine Library Project’s success is that it reflects an understanding the impact that the digital divide and information inequality have on the library’s significance, accessibility and use.

Permazine, the Holdout Digital Zine Library Project, was born out of a collective desire to not only capture and archive valuable cultural information while maintaining the integrity of the zine medium, but also due to a significant need for increased accessibility to cultural and political information. Accessible on the web, its use is promoted through the center’s very popular free-use computers. A notable feature of this library built on the Drupal CMS platform is that its content is constructed not only by the Holdout Bookstore Collective and its volunteers, but also by a greater community of organizations and individuals who have something to contribute - its content is a reflection of community-wide interests. Paramount to the Holdout Digital Zine Library Project’s success is that it reflects an understanding the impact that the digital divide and information inequality have on the library’s significance, accessibility and use.

Games are the future of work. The movement that leads the way is gamification. Gamification is the use of game design techniques, game thinking and game mechanics to enhance non-game contexts. This helps to promote user engagement and thereby increase productivity in the workplace. Our project implements an adventure maze game application (ProFunCess) on the Android platform using the strategy provided by our partner team. ProFunCess will enable Costco Information Systems staff to learn the skills required for different roles by solving a maze, thereby enhancing the learning process by making it fun and interactive. ProFunCess collects information about the game progress which will be beneficial to managers to track the learning progress of employees. The design of ProFunCess allows extension of the game to additional roles, levels, change of characters thus making the application extensible.