WokWalk - AR-powered cultural food tour for San Francisco Chinatown
WokWalk - AR-powered cultural food tour for San Francisco Chinatown
Product Strategy & Design
Creative Directing
Marketing
Video & Animation
UI/UX
3D Modeling & Prototyping
Role (9 weeks)
UX Research · UI/UX Design · Product & Creative Strategy
I led end-to-end design across research, wireframing, and prototyping, combining insights from community interviews, archives, and local guides to shape an inclusive, self-guided AR food tour.
Tools
Swift Code - ARKit · Blender · Figma · Adobe XD · Miro · InVision · Sketch
Overview
WokWalk is a mobile app concept designed to preserve the cultural heritage of San Francisco’s Chinatown while guiding visitors to authentic local restaurants and historic sites. The experience blends audio storytelling, gamified AR exploration, and map-based navigation, encouraging users to discover Chinatown’s history through its food.
🔥 Problem
Chinatown’s historic authenticity has been fading under gentrification and generational shifts. Many long-established businesses were forced to close, and younger residents were moving away. Tourists often visited only surface-level attractions, missing the deeper stories behind the neighborhood’s culture and cuisine.
How might design invite visitors to meaningfully engage with Chinatown’s living history — not just consume it?
Role (9 weeks)
UX Research · UI/UX Design · Product & Creative Strategy
I led end-to-end design across research, wireframing, and prototyping, combining insights from community interviews, archives, and local guides to shape an inclusive, self-guided AR food tour.
Tools
Swift Code - ARKit · Blender · Figma · Adobe XD · Miro · InVision · Sketch
Overview
WokWalk is a mobile app concept designed to preserve the cultural heritage of San Francisco’s Chinatown while guiding visitors to authentic local restaurants and historic sites. The experience blends audio storytelling, gamified AR exploration, and map-based navigation, encouraging users to discover Chinatown’s history through its food.
🔥 Problem
Chinatown’s historic authenticity has been fading under gentrification and generational shifts. Many long-established businesses were forced to close, and younger residents were moving away. Tourists often visited only surface-level attractions, missing the deeper stories behind the neighborhood’s culture and cuisine.
How might design invite visitors to meaningfully engage with Chinatown’s living history — not just consume it?
Process
1. Research & Synthesis
Conducted secondary research on Chinatown’s economic and cultural shifts post-Covid.
Interviewed 4 hospitality business owners, 1 community associate / local historians from the Chinese Culture Center, and 3 Chinatown visitors
Researched on historical literatures that recorded Chinatown's history and clutural migration
Identified barriers: language, lack of curated guidance, and tourists’ limited awareness of authentic spots.
Key Insights
Visitors wanted easy guidance and context beyond restaurant reviews.
Locals wished to preserve heritage but lacked digital tools to do so.
Audio and visual storytelling could bridge the cultural gap.
Process
1. Research & Synthesis
Conducted secondary research on Chinatown’s economic and cultural shifts post-Covid.
Interviewed 4 hospitality business owners, 1 community associate / local historians from the Chinese Culture Center, and 3 Chinatown visitors
Researched on historical literatures that recorded Chinatown's history and clutural migration
Identified barriers: language, lack of curated guidance, and tourists’ limited awareness of authentic spots.
Key Insights
Visitors wanted easy guidance and context beyond restaurant reviews.
Locals wished to preserve heritage but lacked digital tools to do so.
Audio and visual storytelling could bridge the cultural gap.
2. Ideation
Defined “How Might We” questions to reframe opportunities:
How might we make Chinatown’s history more interactive and fun?
How might we reduce overwhelm for visitors trying to find good local food?
How might we help tourists communicate with locals more easily?
Mapped 9 authentic food vendors and historical landmarks that best reflected Chinatown’s evolution since the Gold Rush era.
User Stories & MVP Scope
Must Have: map + GPS guidance, historical introductions, audio guides, food recommendations.
Nice to Have: review sharing, reward system, AR exploration.
2. Ideation
Defined “How Might We” questions to reframe opportunities:
How might we make Chinatown’s history more interactive and fun?
How might we reduce overwhelm for visitors trying to find good local food?
How might we help tourists communicate with locals more easily?
Mapped 9 authentic food vendors and historical landmarks that best reflected Chinatown’s evolution since the Gold Rush era.
User Stories & MVP Scope
Must Have: map + GPS guidance, historical introductions, audio guides, food recommendations.
Nice to Have: review sharing, reward system, AR exploration.
3. Design & Prototype
Created low-fidelity wireframes to test layout and information hierarchy before adding visuals. Two core user paths emerged:
Free Exploration Mode – users navigate freely to nearby locations based on interest or distance.
Guided Tour Mode – an AR scavenger experience that unlocks stories chronologically through food stops.
The prototype showcased language options, GPS-based storytelling, and AR overlays to reveal hidden history where users stood.
3. Design & Prototype
Created low-fidelity wireframes to test layout and information hierarchy before adding visuals. Two core user paths emerged:
Free Exploration Mode – users navigate freely to nearby locations based on interest or distance.
Guided Tour Mode – an AR scavenger experience that unlocks stories chronologically through food stops.
The prototype showcased language options, GPS-based storytelling, and AR overlays to reveal hidden history where users stood.
Once the journey begins, users will be guided by a Chinatown delivery man or tray man. Tray man was the first and only food delivery service in America in the late 1800s. Hence that I created the 3D model of a delivery man and rigged him in Blender to set him as the AR food tour guide.
After arriving at the destination, other AR features and historical contents will be activated by scanning the storefront； meanwhile, visitors are encouraged to learn more about the neighborhood and its roots by completing a series of quests designed to support local businesses.
Demonstration of the Interactive Audio Augmented Reality at Chinatown.
(Enable audio for better experience! :)
Demonstration of the Interactive Audio Augmented Reality at Chinatown.
(Enable audio for better experience! :)
In order to help the visitors with more guidance,
I embedded SFSpeech to Text Recognition to make the order and dining experience more informational.
This feature would also help users when they are confused about the names on the menu and encourage cultural exchange communication with the locals.
Inspired by Joanne's sticky notes attached on the directory, I decided to create the review and sharing experience through AR Sticky Notes allowing users to share their memories and leave their reviews in the AR space.
Each individual unique experience and feeling could be expressed through the their own preference of color. It provides more business opportunities for the local neighborhood institutions. And here is a video demonstration of leaving a note for the next visitor.
Inspired by Joanne's sticky notes attached on the directory, I decided to create the review and sharing experience through AR Sticky Notes allowing users to share their memories and leave their reviews in the AR space.
Each individual unique experience and feeling could be expressed through the their own preference of color. It provides more business opportunities for the local neighborhood institutions. And here is a video demonstration of leaving a note for the next visitor.
