Share New York Spots. Connect with students.

LiCk NYC

Designed by Lauren Moon

230

Licks

Lick it!

Lick is a community-building mobile application dedicated to supporting New York City college students share food experiences together.

Lick as many NYC spots and share with NYC students.

Which university will have the most Licks?

App Design Process

This project introduces a competitive approach to restaurant discovery, offering a personalized, student-led exploration of local eateries. Unlike Yelp or Google Maps, this app targets a specific audience—New York City students—and focuses on building a digital community around shared food experiences, leveraging the social aspect of dining. Lick will foster user engagement by creating incentives for students to explore more places, write reviews, and share recommendations.

Lick Now

Assignment

A seminar and hands-on working group for senior capstone projects in the New Media and Digital Design program. This course will offer a cooperative setting for students to (a) produce work and prepare written materials about their work and their professional selves (b) strengthen this work and writing with critiques and peer reviews.

Students will propose and complete projects which (a) demonstrate the skills and expertise acquired during their undergraduate careers, (b) are driven by a strong passion of theirs, and (c) innovate in their chosen subject. Student participation will be essential for the success of the group.

Background

My background in marketing, digital design, and passion for food exploration inspired this project. After encountering a company focused on food reviews and community, I was drawn to its simplicity and innovation. I wanted to build on that idea by prototyping a digital app tailored specifically to college students and their communities.

I have experience developing digital prototypes and creating community-driven platforms, skills that align perfectly with designing a tool that blends user interaction, food discovery, and community-building. Additionally, my expertise in video editing and photography will enhance the app's visual appeal, elevating the user experience.

Fordham Lincoln Center (and possibly Rose Hill) students lack a centralized, student-led platform to explore local eateries. This absence leads to missed opportunities for great dining experiences, especially for new students and visitors. Existing options like Yelp or word-of-mouth lack personalization and community engagement tailored to students.

This app will bridge that gap by providing updated, reliable, and student-driven insights into local dining. It fosters a sense of ownership and community, empowering students to share and explore food experiences together.

Design Challenges

As a design student, I initially had no experience with Figma, a web-based tool for interface design and prototyping. However, I was determined to learn and use the platform to bring my idea to life. My desire to expand my UX/UI design skills drove me to create a tangible product that has the potential to be professionally developed. With little prior knowledge of app development, I dedicated time to exploring similar mobile apps, analyzing their features, and identifying elements to incorporate into the Lick app.

In the app’s design, I focused on expressing themes of appetite, experience, and fun through intentional choices of color schemes, fonts, and icons. I used specific colors to evoke certain emotions:

Red symbolizes hunger and craving.
Yellow conveys happiness and extroversion.
Green represents a sense of journey, discovery, and harmony.

The app’s playful font reinforces its lighthearted and engaging personality, enhancing the overall user experience.

Comparative Analysis

This app draws inspiration from popular platforms like Beli, Google Maps, Yelp, and OpenTable, all of which excel in restaurant discovery, reviews, and location mapping, while fostering community engagement.

I aimed to incorporate their key principles of account personalization and community-centered design into my prototype, with a focus on college students in New York City as the target audience. The Beli app’s “unlocking scores” feature encourages consistent user engagement by providing incentives. Similarly, the Lick app integrates a gamified scoring system where students are motivated to collect as many “Licks” as possible, enhancing interaction and competition within the platform.

Inspired by Google Maps, Lick includes a location and mapping feature that allows users to explore, navigate, and better understand their communities. However, since Lick is tailored to New York City college students, the mapping boundaries are limited to the NYC metropolitan area.