Long-tang Walker - Michelle Chen

Introduction

Overview

Long-tang Walker is a mobility concept that encourages people in the Longtan area to walk instead of relying on motorcycles for short trips. The experience combines step tracking with local discounts, creating a practical incentive for healthier daily behavior and safer streets.

01 — Problem Statement

Challenges on Longtan Road

Through field observations and interviews conducted around Longtan Road, we identified several core challenges impacting both the community and the environment:

Traffic & Infrastructure

Interviews and field observations showed heavy traffic during peak meal hours, limited parking, and air-quality concerns.

Behavioral Habits

Students and residents reported that short-distance driving had become a default habit even where walkability is possible.

Pedestrian Safety

There is a high concentration of motorcycle traffic during school and meal rushes, causing pedestrians to face safety and comfort challenges along key crossings.

02 — Project Goals

Motivational, innovative, and health-focused

The vision for this project was to create a motivational, innovative, and health-focused solution. The primary goals were to:

Increase Physical Activity

Motivate users to increase physical activity by converting their daily step count into monetary values.

Boost Engagement

Use competition modes to encourage active participation.

Support Local Commerce

Drive increased foot traffic and street activity, which directly benefits local businesses.

03 — Design Process

From research to core experience

Phase 01 — UX Research

Discovery

Driving is the default habit — even when walking is viable.

I began the process with primary research, utilizing surveys, interviews, and on-site field observations.

The Insight

We discovered that driving had become a deeply ingrained default habit for students and residents, even when walking was a viable option.

Field evaluation documentation from observations and interviews around Longtan Road — Field research — observations and interviews documenting traffic, habits, and pedestrian safety around Longtan Road.

Commute preference — survey baseline

Drive alone

72%

Walk today

28%

Concept goal

55%

24 Survey respondents

3 Research methods

3 App pillars

Phase 02 — Ideation

Concept Strategy

Daily walks become redeemable value for local businesses.

Knowing that local businesses thrive on street activity, we hypothesized that we could bridge personal health with community economics.

The Decision

We decided to design an app that turns daily walking into redeemable value, balancing personal motivation with neighborhood impact by connecting healthier routines to local commerce.

Long-tang Walker home page concept connecting walking rewards to local commerce — Concept direction — personal health tied to neighborhood impact along Longtan Road.

Phase 03 — Core Experience

Product Pillars

Three pillars — track activity, foster competition, redeem rewards.

To ensure the app was engaging and intuitive, we focused the product design on three main pillars: tracking physical activity, fostering competition, and facilitating reward redemption.

Track Activity

Daily step tracking converted into monetary value.

Foster Competition

Weekly and monthly rankings to boost participation.

Redeem Rewards

Local discounts along Longtan Road tied to accumulated value.

App structure diagram showing tracking, competition, and reward redemption flows — App structure — three core experience pillars mapped across the product.

Phase 04 — Visual Design

UI Kit

A shared UI kit keeps tracking, competition, and redemption consistent.

With the core flows defined, I built a UI kit to keep screens consistent across tracking, competition, and reward redemption — shared buttons, cards, navigation, and type scales that scale from onboarding through redemption.

Long-tang Walker UI kit showing components, typography, and color system — UI kit — shared components and visual language applied across the Long-tang Walker experience.

04 — Key Solutions

Tracking, competition, and local rewards

Three core features work together to turn daily walking into measurable value and community motivation along Longtan Road.

Solution 01

Pedometer & Value Conversion

Through a pedometer, users can track their daily step count, converting these steps into monetary values. The main page intuitively displays daily steps, accumulated amounts, and a trend chart.

Solution 02

Competition Mode

We introduced weekly and monthly step count rankings to encourage users to actively participate, boosting their motivation for physical activity.

Solution 03

Reward Redemption

Establishments along Longtan Road offer discounts on food and beverages, and users can easily redeem these products using the accumulated monetary values from their step counts.

05 — Reflection & Impact

Behavior, incentives, and neighborhood impact

Designing the Long-tang Walker app was an exercise in understanding human behavior and community ecosystems. By identifying that a purely health-focused app might not break the habit of driving short distances, we successfully pivoted to an economic incentive.

Problems Solved

Addressed the over-reliance on motorcycles for short trips and pedestrian safety concerns at crossings.

Goals Achieved

Created a seamless system where users can accumulate steps, track progress, and exchange rewards at nearby stores.

Project Vision

The final product successfully balances personal motivation with neighborhood impact by connecting healthier routines to local commerce.