WORLD bUILDER

The sign came first.

I started with the symbols and asked what would happen if they could direct the body. A line suggested where a limb might reach; a fold in fabric suggested where two figures could touch. In Adam and Eve, the names tell you to expect two people. The drawing asks where you would separate them.

The body can push back.

In A Is for Anarchy, the body’s reach pulls the mark outward. Across the series, the same method holds room for Black queer desire, unease, and the right to decide how you appear. The name Project ArtFag makes that question part of how the work enters the world.

Make reuse possible before the purchase.

A shopper can care about waste and still buy the new thing. The browser prototype brings the secondhand option into the decision they’re already making. The capstone took that observation further: where does the used thing come from, and what makes it easy for someone else to find?

What the first prototype exposed

The work started in Cornell’s HCI studio and continued through the Climate Communications Capstone. I took the carbon-credit idea to the Campus Sustainability Office. The browser tests brought me back to the decision in front of the shopper: could they find a secondhand option without leaving what they were doing?

The first Eco Buddy prototypes explored a companion app, goals, and rewards. Then a shopper mistook the browser extension for a redirect. The experience was recreating the extra trip it was meant to remove.

Dig deeper Eco Buddy and the early browser studies

Early Eco Buddy and browser studies

Give the material another life.

The Cirkular site brought reuse into the visual language. The animal footage keeps changing treatment as it moves. The Catalog applied that idea to existing images, and Digital Compost made it a rule of the feed. Images arrive in batches, expire, and can return visibly changed.

Could a campus story get you out the door?

The original app put campus news and events in the same feed. One story could tell you what mattered to Cornell that day. The next could be something you could walk to in ten minutes. That shift from reading to going became the product.

Give students a way into the work

In the plan I shared with the office and my Climate Communications Capstone professor, Cornell NOW sat alongside Cirkular and a student incubator. A student could find an initiative, join in, or build something of their own. Mission Sustainability opened the conversation. The app gave it somewhere to go after orientation.

Dig deeper Early user journeys and research

An earlier brief explored event discovery by time. The initial user journey ran from filtering by start time to saving or cancelling a plan, then following the organization behind it.

The early journey followed a student from opening the events list to filtering by start time, saving or cancelling a plan, and following the organization behind it. The later concept added a campus feed, discussion, and an assistant that could point to the right office.

The next decision is whether to go.

In V2, a campus event becomes a real option when you can see whether you’ll make it there in time. And when a story leaves you with a question, Ask gives you two places to look: the people who’ve been there and the office that can give you an official answer.

1. Today A news-led feed keeps the original app’s editorial point of view.
2. Explore The map and time filters turn an open hour into a plan.
3. Campus Student discussion and saved plans give people a way back.

Find the voice where it has something to do.

Tab Moments put the service inside the kind of problem that already has a story. In The Goldfish, three fish have to travel first class in a pickle jar. Tab has to be useful inside the absurdity. In Lake Como, two cuts let the audience spend the evening with the couple or follow the calls that made it happen.

Make the result recognizable.

The soft square from the icon carries the viewer from the familiar message into the result. The confirmation has to show what was actually arranged before it opens into the scene. That lets the format change with the request. A recipe needs room to read. Moving quotes need room to compare.

Give the person the last word.

Getting the table is the task. Remaining the favourite sister is the story. Tab People follows the request into the moment it made possible, then gives the person a portrait and a title they can claim. The format works because the achievement already means something to them.

Give people something worth asking for.

Dinner Without the Spiral starts with a problem New Yorkers recognize and gives them places they could actually go. A practical text closes the edition. What begins as a good read can become a plan, then the kind of experience Tab People is built to celebrate.