Word on the Street
Experience Designer
A new sport that can be played asynchronously, competitively and collaboratively. Every street becomes the playing field, every time of day is the start time, and every age can play at their own pace.
YEAR
ROLE
SKILLS
2020
Experience Designer
UX/UI, Health & Wellness, Game Design
Prioritizing Health in 2020
The world shut down in 2020 to protect everyone’s health and prevent the spread of the virus. Trying to stay healthy from COVID 19 brought its own health challenges.
Physical Health
Traditional ways stay active and healthy while gyms, fields, and arenas were closed
Mental Health
Increased isolation and depression from self isolation, quarantine, and social distancing
Body Tracking Explorations
Initial studies were done at home using Radical AI to activate users to earn points and compete against others.
Insight:
During this same time period, I was also TRACKING my own walks to support my "work from home" and pandemic safety lifestyle.
Being able to focus on technology that was more accessible and robust allowed me to PIVOT my design objective.
Instead of creating a solution that required micro-movements (gestures), I focused on tracking macro-movements (walking).
Development:
Early ideation came from looking at the maps on every walk and determining the possible outputs. By envisioning different letterforms, I created the specific scoring mechanism for this new game.
Iterations were tested every day by taking walks everywhere.
How can we reimagine sports as an interactive platform to encourage an active lifestyle, competition, and creativity, in unprecedented health, societal, and economic constraints?
Introducing a new street sport where players to spell out words by walking or running letters with their paths. This sport encourages players to discover new words, sites, and routes as they try and navigate each letter within local, distant, urban, and rural landscapes.
Wherever you are and wherever you go, you can help spread the word.
In your neighborhood
Or downtown
Any time of day
Wherever you go
Rules to Play
Select your challenge and start tracking your walk or run with your smart phone’s GPS.
Plan Your Path
Plan your route to try and match the letter form. Each letter will depend on the paths and streets around you.
Sample walkable paths for this challenge
Trim Your Route
After each walk, trim your path. You can eliminate extra lines, but also add features for extra skill points.
Sample features to add style in your path
With & Against Others
Rank other players skill to finalize points. You'll see scores from those in your crew and around the globe.
Scoring
Accuracy
The app will measure variations on your route compared to the suggested letterforms of capital and lowercase letters.
Skill
Different letters are awarded more points based on their complexity and if players include details in the letter forms.
Distance
The mileage covered in your route is multiplied to the other scores.
Socially Distant Exploring & Tourism
By hosting Word on the Street Championships, guests can travel within geographical regions to complete challenges.
Walking and discovering new parts of town will bring foot traffic to store fronts and restaurants for those who want to wander.
As users explore new paths, they are able to drop tags in areas of interest, from architecture and landscaping, to street art.
Want to know how to play? See how here!
