Here's to people who love to travel and immerse themselves in unique experiences. Graphic Designer, Nimisha Patil created XPLR - an app that helps tourists become explorers. She wanted the average traveller to experience the city in a situationist's Flaneur way. This app was designed to take the user on a random walk in Edinburgh. It started off as a regular travel app that suggested the best places to visit in the city and evolved into XPLR.
I wanted to design something that urges people to explore their surroundings with a different perspective. When we have spent a long time in the same place, we start ignoring certain things around us. XPLR is a way of becoming aware of our city again. Walking through it like when we were new to the city.
-Nimisha Patil
With regards to the design- I did some research about some existing mobile/web applications that were in the market. Their user interface was not very easy to use and the design was quite clunky. I wanted to design an interface that directly immersed the users in their surroundings. Thus, I used a dark template to keep the user focused on just the directions that the app generates.
-Nimisha Patil
I was inspired by Mark Shepard's Serendipitor, Drift by Broken City Labs, Derive app and Ingress the smart phone app created by John Hanke.
-Nimisha Patil
I designed this app to be simple and user-friendly. The function is to help 'tourists' become 'explorers'.
-Nimisha Patil
My advice to my fellow colleagues would be to keep creating, making, trying, failing, learning and creating new things again and again.
-Nimisha Patil
ABOUT NIMISHA PATIL
Nimisha Patil is currently studying MA Graphic Design from Edinburgh College of Art. She has worked as a Junior Art Director in an advertising agency in India before moving to Edinburgh. She believes that good design solves problems. Hence for her, it is important to spend time on the process of developing the idea before the aesthetics. See more of Nimisha's work at Behance or at her website.
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