The project itself :
Over 40% of urban residents experience emotional disconnection from their cities. Modern navigation systems optimize for efficiency but fail to support the subjective, emotional, and cultural interpretation that transforms a location into a meaningful place. People navigate on autopilot, missing the layers of history, beauty, and stories embedded in their surroundings, leading to a perceptual crisis where urban richness becomes invisible.
Secondary Research & Primary Research
Wireframing
Brand Design
Information Architecture and user flows
Design a speculative urban exploration ecosystem that helps people develop deeper emotional connections with their cities by shifting from efficiency-driven navigation to emotionally driven discovery.
UX Designer & Researcher for AURA, an 8-month thesis project at OCAD University. Conducted all research, conceptual development, system design, and prototyping as a solo designer.
Service Pillar
I created these perceptual maps to chart how existing urban exploration tools balance utility and entertainment against structured versus open-ended discovery, revealing where AURA can uniquely position itself through emotional engagement, meaningful storytelling, and immersive experience.
AURA’s three service pillars operate as a circular, evolving system
All about the user :
The Noticing Deficit Study
To validate the problem, I conducted a controlled experiment with 6 participants across 3 walking conditions:
Each group walked the same 2km Toronto route with different guidance:
No guidance, passive walking
Generic prompts ("notice colors," "listen to sounds")
Story-driven AR prompts revealing historical context
Story-driven prompts increased memory retention by 3x and emotional engagement by 4.4x.
Group A walked past a historic fountain without noticing it at all—demonstrating how urban richness becomes invisible.
Personas were selected by conducting user research and identifying common pain points, that frustrate and block the user from getting what they need from a product.
Primary Stakeholders & Secondary Stakeholders
All about the user :
Our targeted position within the market.
I created these perceptual maps to chart how existing urban exploration tools balance utility and entertainment against structured versus open-ended discovery, revealing where AURA can uniquely position itself through emotional engagement, meaningful storytelling, and immersive experience.
AURA's Position:
At the intersection of Emotional Engagement and Autonomous Exploration, which filling a gap left by efficiency-focused or overly gamified apps.
I mapped the contrast between how users currently explore the city and how AURA reimagines that experience, tracing the shift from passive, tool-dependent navigation to emotionally engaged, story-driven discovery.
I developed three user journey maps to explore how people currently experience the city, envision how AURA transforms that experience, and trace the emotional arc of a full exploration day from intention to reflection.
Identify the gaps in existing urban exploration behavior and define the experiential leap AURA aims to create.
The project schematically :
I created various diagrams and storyboards to clarify and analyze the app's information and architecture. Afterward, I sketched paper wireframes and then transitioned to digital wireframes, building a low-fidelity prototype to conduct initial usability studies with stakeholders.
30+ sketches exploring different interaction models
Paper prototypes testing AR overlay density
User flow mapping for mobile + web
Here I drew different versions of how structure of information on a homepage might look like. Then I reviewed all the versions and combined them in the refined one. The goal was to explore different ideas with wireframes.
Refining the concept
Wireframes for mobile app (5 core screens)
System design diagrams (data flow between components)
Testing emotion detection algorithms with Apple Watch HRV data
User-Positioning
AURA targets emotionally curious explorers seeking deeper connections, inspiration, or creativity. By empowering users to shape their narratives, it transforms them into active participants in rediscovering their cities.
Core Topics
AURA redefines urban exploration by blending curiosity, creativity, and emotional connection. Rooted in Urban Flânerie, it moves beyond goal-oriented navigation, offering AI-driven tools for users to shape meaningful urban narratives and engage cities as dynamic, interactive landscapes.
Self-Positioning
As a brand founder, I define AURA as a radical reawakening of urban consciousness, an AI-driven movement that transforms cities into living, responsive storyworlds, rejecting passive navigation and reigniting wonder, serendipity, and emotional connection.
Next step: creating the application map. My goal here was to make strategic information architecture decisions that would improve overall app & website navigation. The structure I chose was designed to make things simple and easy.
I created all the app pages mockups, incorporating the right design elements such as typography, color, and iconography. I also included captivating and visually appealing images, and developed all the necessary components and elements.
The goal was to demonstrate the final AURA Mobile Platform in as much detail as possible.
Personalized Exploration
AURA moves beyond traditional routing. Users design their own emotional
pathway by selecting:
Exploration Style
Reflective, adventurous, or spontaneous
Thematic Journeys
Color trails, historical layers, hidden sounds
Mood & Terrain
Urban greenery, riverside, architectural corridors
Media Preferences
Photographic, sonic, or text-based reflections
The app integrates biometric feedback: if HRV or mood tracking is enabled,
AURA suggests slower-paced routes during stress or vibrant neighborhoods
when energized.
Design Philosophy:
Everything is swipeable, floating, and animated with physics that mimic
real-world softness. Exploration is not task-based, but reflective and
iterative.
Beyond Navigation: Immersive Presence
Conversational AI
Contextual prompts surface through place and mood, inviting deeper listening and reflection.
Real-Time Emotional Tracking
Biometric readings detect emotional shifts. AURA adapts:
Stressed? → Calm routing, low screen input
Energized? → Ambient audio, open brightness
Pausing frequently? → Pause suggestion, soft check-in
Capture & Remix Tools
Every interaction is saved in a semiotic way: photos, sound clips, voice notes, and tactile notes. After the journey, users revisit and reassemble these fragments into shareable digital postcards.
Sensory Mapping
Capture scent, touch, light, and sound as a live sensory heatmap.
Real-Time Emotional Mapping
AR Visual Reconstruction: See the Past
Using AR overlays, AURA visually resurrects:
Hidden or erased elements of the urban landscape
Projected facades of vanished buildings
Industrial zones before gentrification
Past public installations
Audio Layers: Hear the Past
Context-aware audio overlays reanimate urban locations:
The call to prayer layered into present traffic
An archival speech faintly echoing at old government buildings
Sonic ghosts curated to evoke empathy, temporal layering, historical presence
Voice, Memory, and Community
The Community Page
An archive of urban intimacy.
When you pass a space previously marked by another explorer, AURA surfaces
Users conclude their journey by transforming collected fragments into brief, shareable digital postcards. These narrative cards combine images, audio, and personal reflection to create condensed storytelling experiences. It helps users connect with one another by enabling shared experiences, such as inviting others to start a journey together or co-visit an existing one, creating multiple ways to explore the city collectively.
Personalized Exploration
A. Automatic Dreamscape Generation
Using neural texture synthesis (StyleGAN2) and 3D rendering (Three.js): Transforms route and emotion data into a surreal 3D landscape of the journey.
B. Emotional Dashboard
Shows mood shifts, memory hotspots, and evolving connections with places.
C. Dream Remix Studio (Editor)
Lets users edit color, space, and sound, then export the experience in multiple formats.
D. Social Sharing
Users can share dreamscapes publicly for others to explore, with location privacy protected.
The project schematically :
Transform autopilot navigation into mindful urban exploration, where AI-driven storytelling increases spatial memory by 3x and creates a collective archive of urban intimacy through shared sensory experiences.
AURA bridges 19th-century Urban Flânerie philosophy with modern AR and emotion AI, creating a three-part ecosystem (mobile, web, holographic installations) that shifts urban exploration from efficiency-driven navigation to emotionally-driven discovery, validated through rigorous experimental research and user testing.
Through controlled experiments, AURA increased urban memory recall from 27% to 85% (+215%) and emotional engagement from 2.1/10 to 9.2/10 (+338%). Testing with 20+ participants validated that story-driven prompts foster deeper spatial awareness, with 90% preferring thematic exploration over traditional navigation and users spending 39% more time discovering their cities.
Speculative design requires constant negotiation between ambitious vision and technical feasibility. My biggest takeaway: emotional design is quantifiable by measuring heart rate variability, recall accuracy, and qualitative engagement. I proved that technology can amplify human presence rather than optimize it away. I also learned that the most meaningful research often becomes the most compelling storytelling tool.
AURA's speculative vision requires real-world validation to measure long-term behavioral impact and refine the emotional-spatial interaction model.
Partner with AR developers and emotion AI researchers to create a Toronto pilot, testing core features with 50+ participants over 3 months.
Run participatory sessions with local neighborhoods to co-create culturally-rooted thematic trails that reflect lived experiences rather than imposed narratives.
We live in an attention economy where our most valuable resource, our capacity to notice, is constantly extracted and redirected toward screens. We've optimized cities for efficiency but lost the ability to simply be present in them. AURA uses technology to fade into the background, to amplify what's already there, then step aside.
The goal is to help people look up. To notice magnolia petals falling. To hear a grandfather humming. To feel warm brick. To recognize that every corner holds a story and every walk can become meditation. Attention is our most valuable resource because it's how we create meaning, build memory, and belong.AURA asks: What if technology helped us pay attention to the world instead of distracting us from it? This project is a provocation. A reminder that we need more presence, slower noticing, and the ability to see what's already here.The city has always been a text waiting to be read. AURA simply offers a way to read it, then put the book down and live in it.
