Posted by Merrin
On February 4th, Victor Sima and Steven Lao took home the Best Overall Application Grand Prize ($5,000) and the Data Visualization Award Grand Prize ($2,500) in the NYC BigApps competition. Their app, WayFinder NYC, will give you the nearest and best directions to NYC subway and NJ Path stations on your Android phone.
Victor (a programmer and developer who has been living in NYC for seven years) and Steven (a Hong Kong-born, Texas-raised graphic designer who has been living in NYC for five years) have helped each other out on past projects, but this was their first full-on collaboration. The app, Victor says, “started out as a tech demo for augmented reality.” Once that basic functionality was working, “we kept building on it to become a full featured application.”
Just a few weeks after their big win, these two took some time to answer a few questions for me.
M: How did you conceive of this particular application?
S: Most of my friends, even seasoned New Yorkers, have some sort of subway map app on their phone. It just seemed like a new and innovative method, something that could be useful to people living in and visiting the city.
M: What did you each contribute to the project?
V: I wrote all of the code, and Steven created all the graphics and user interface. It’s a small team, but we both stick to what we are good at and it worked out.
S: As a graphic designer, I focused on the visuals and overall graphic look of the app. I think our separate roles and ways of thinking helped give an outsider’s feedback on what the other was working on. Vic would tell me if graphics and menu layouts weren’t intuitive, and I would give him comments on the usability and overflow.
M: What was the biggest developmental challenge?
V: Probably creating the augmented reality software from scratch. Also learning how to make the app as fast and responsible as possible. You can only fit so much data and processing power on a phone.
M: Were there any aspects of the application that changed significantly during development?
S: I’m extremely proud of how the app turned out. There have been some major updates as we’ve learned things along the way. Changing the main navigation from text to icons was an example of us working out how to make the app more accessible to non-English speaking users.
M: Do you have any plans to expand development?
V: We released the Vancouver version on February 12th just in time for the winter Olympics.
S: There’s also been requests for an iPhone and Blackberry version, which we’re discussing.
M: Do you both now have an encyclopedic knowledge of the New York subway system?
V: I do a lot of freelance work from my home in Brooklyn, so I don’t travel out to Manhattan as much as I should. I admit, I do end up using my app to navigate areas I’m not familiar with.
S: If I didn’t know the subway system before, I do now!
