Headspeace
  Interface
  Redesign
 “AllKnight”
Comic Con
  Echo
Curtain
 “Absence Approved”
Gallery Installation
“CrimePartner”
Night &Cosplay
  “Suffocated Love”
“AllKnight”  Comic Con
  Echo
Curtain
Lotus
  “Suffocated Love”
Experience Design
     Echo           Curtain
  “Anime’s Rise”
Data Visualization
  “Anime’s Rise”
DataVisualization
   Echo    Curtain
Squeak”UX Interface
  “Suffocated         Love”
  “CrimePartner”
Experience Design
      & Curator
“Suffocated Love”
Experience Design
  “Suffocated        Love”
Echo Curtain

Experience Design                           Interface Design                          Graphic Design                     Jennifer Qian
“Squeak”
Figmake_AI Hakathon



Overview:

  • Problem: NYC residents struggle with frequent rat encounters, but existing civic apps feel intimidating or too serious to encourage participation. 
  • Design Goal: Create a cute, approachable mobile app that turns reporting or avoiding rats into a playful civic activity.
  • Success Criteria: Reduce fear, motivate engagement, support two distinct user types. 
  • Constraints: One-week design sprint using Figma Make; hand-drawn UI due to tool limitations; Figmake is bad at mapping, and the style is old-fashioned

  • Target Users:
  • Rat Avoider—anxious commuter who wants safe, rat-free routes 
  • Rat Ranger—curious collector who can spot and photograph rats


Outcome:
Research & Insights:




Methods
Competitive Analysis 
(311, Citizen)
Semi-constructed Interview
Key Findings

• 311’s rat reporting system is formal, and users need to fill out structured forms, discouraging them from reporting frequently.

• Users who really afraid of rats don’t receive real-time alerts, which means receiving reports doesn’t help.

• Reports often take days or weeks to generate follow-up actions, and the feedback is slow or invisible to the public.

• report-based result text-heavy and lacks visual guidance

• The system assumes users are willing to interact with government services, which isn’t true. Many users avoid reporting because they don’t want to “make it official.”

• No positive reinforcement encourages people to report this problem. People really afriad of rats will not be able to report themseleve.		 • Rat-Afraid People struggle with the life with seeing rats everywhere (parks, subways, trash bins, outside restaurants).

• People will not report the existence of rats just because they are seeing them to 311; there’s no real solution for this.

• Some people felt like rats have become a famous iconic thing of New York

• It’s sometimes interesting to find out rats in the park with the squirrels. (Curious users want fun, exploration, and social sharing, making gamification a strong motivator.)
• Both groups complained that 311 is too bureaucratic, too slow, and not friendly.
• A dual-mode approach (Ranger / Walker) emerged naturally from the emotional divide


Resources 
(cite)
Rat or Mouse Complaint · NYC311
Interviews/small chats

Impact on Design		• gamification, maybe adding more playfulness into the whole program to encourage people participate
• friendly and warm visual to reduce rat-anxiety (look like disney or Duolingo?)

• we need two different kinds of people in this app (one willing to collect photos, one only would like to find rat-free places)
• For the map filter, we need to specify the distance around the user to make the rat-free users can choose the safe routes.
• Maybe adding some achievements for the rat-collecting users



Ideation & Exploration:

  • Early Concepts:
  1. where people can submit their own encounters with rats as social media posts or reports to the government (too serious; similar to the form of 311)
  2. community-based discussion app (cannot really solve the problem) 3. Gamified Exploration Map-Based App
  • Why Gamified Exploration Map-Based App?
    • encourage all types of users and large database collection (either collect/photo the rat or not see the rats at all)
    • lower “rat-anxiety”
    • boost participation, civic engagement with a mode like Pokemon Go!
  • Persona




Visual Prototypes:

New York Rat Graffiti Art StyleMascot Inspirations
Color Palette

FigMake Prototype: Two-Mode Testing


Finalized Visual Board:

Map-System Testing:


Final Deliverables:

Explanation of the problem:
Our solution addresses this through a dual-mode experience:


  1. Rat Ranger Mode (For Curious Explorers)

    This mode reframes rat encounters as a playful urban exploration activity. • Users can spot and photograph rats. • Collect sightings into a “Rat-a-Dex.” • Earn achievements to stay engaged.

  2. Squeak-Free Walker Mode (For Anxious Commuters)

    For users who fear rats or want safer walking routes: • No rat photos are shown. • Users receive simple, calm alerts. • The app generates safe, low-risk paths for nighttime commutes.

    Instead of a one-size-fits-all reporting platform, Squeak provides a customized emotional experience tailored to the two dominant user mindsets we identified in our research.



  • Content Design:
    • Microcopy emphasizes playfulness (“Let’s GOOO!”, “Rat Ranger,” “Squeak-Free Walker”)\
    • Avoiding fear-triggering language for the Avoider persona

Credit & Process Transparency

  • Thanks to ChatGPT for generating the first combined, overall Figmake instruction with accurate button and sizing.
  • Thanks to Pinterest for mascot inspiration
  • Thanks for collaboration with my Group member: Astrid, Amy, Ruihao