Showing the Way in Uncharted Territory

Role

Lead Product Designer

Impact

0-1 product design serving 125,000 visitors per day

Summary

Hudson Yards is a newly developed neighborhood in New York City containing residential, office, cultural, hospitality, and retail spaces. I led the design of a wayfinding interface for kiosks placed throughout the development. As a lead designer for Intersection (an Alphabet backed company) I completed research, development, designs, testing, and managed a visual designer and engineer for implementation.

Serving every need of a neighborhood

The Hudson Yards kiosk is a help center for a variety of users with many needs, goals, and knowledge of the neighborhood. The challenge was to build an interface that elevates the experience of the space through navigation and contextual information.

The resulting design is an intuitive support system that provides effortless guidance throughout the Hudson Yards campus and drives traffic and sales for all of its businesses and experiences. It serves as a dynamic utility, working in concert with other digital and static signage by providing information on retailers, residences, offices, attractions, and public spaces.

In the first day of operation the kiosk was used by over 5,000 people and continues to serve 125,000 visitors to Hudson Yards per day.

Designing for each individual

The kiosk serves the needs of all user types so that no matter where they are on the campus, they can find what they need. UI elements are placed strategically to call attention, provide an intuitive path for finger(s), and be comfortable for a user of any height or in a wheelchair.

Connecting people to a place

Kiosks are placed throughout the Hudson Yard Campus, serving as an information tool with contextual navigation. With a couple of taps, a user can see where they are in Hudson Yards and quickly navigate to information or directions that can be passed to a mobile device by scanning a QR code.