Gaige Dickerson's User Experience

People are connected; socially we are as strong as we have ever been. Being presented with our successes from all over the world means being presented with our struggles as well. We need to utilize our connectivity for good.

Cultivate: see change

A primary reason why people are unmotivated to make donations to certain causes comes from the fact that they cannot easily see the difference they are making. The inability to witness exactly how far your dollar goes can give way to insecurities regarding the legitimacy of the cause. Cultivate aims to keep users updated and informed.

So what does Cultivate do?

Cultivate gets people interested in worldwide causes by utilizing its unique Augmented Reality (AR) interface to keep them updated on the impacts they’ve had on the world. Users can read about and connect with different charities based on their own interests, choosing when and how much to support each cause. In return, they receive AR “Tokens” that provide visual representations of how much they have helped out. Grouping together multiple users means being able to ‘cultivate’ an entire community of giving.

Why is this necessary?

So far, there are solutions that exist for alternative ways that people of the world can help causes and donate. However, where their money goes and how it helps is often lost, and the lack of feedback deters most from repeated support. Cultivate provides information on where every penny goes, and its Token system is an entertaining way to show the impact they have made.

This experience was completed in the Spring of 2020 over the course of 10 weeks as a project for Advanced Applications for Physical Computing.

As the sole developer for this solution, I claim responsibility for this project’s entirety; of course complimented by the instrumental feedback from my peers.