Our journey from mobile to web

Sam Addeo
Sam Addeo
Nov 7 · 5 min read

In case you missed our announcement last week, we at Urban Archive just released our first web app, making our popular geospatial application available to anyone with an internet connection for the first time.

Take it out for a spin! Here’s the link: www.urbanarchive.org

If you’ve been following our project, you probably know that we’ve spent these last few years developing an iOS app that merges open city data with the digital collections of dozens of museums, libraries, and city agencies. Since we started as a mobile-first platform, we’d love to show you the process that led us to expand to a web application.


Our humble beginnings

Urban Archive began in 2016 as an experiment with the Museum of the City of New York, Brooklyn Historical Society, and New York Public Library. The founding team set out to develop an immersive, digital experience for the organizations that would breath new life into their archives and engage users in the history of their surroundings. Our first product iteration focused on these ideas, leading us to create a map-centric experience that drastically expanded the reach of historical collections.

Screengrabs from our first build, ca. 2017.

Our decision to make NYC’s grid the gateway to discovery was both wishful and intentional. We believed this approach would surface contextually rich information to users while encouraging a natural interaction with content in the app. Feedback from early users and partners validated this belief, and so we continued to challenge ourselves to build and improve upon the experience.

A summary of ideas and limitations

By the end of 2017, our platform had grown to include 17,000 historical photographs sourced from 12 contributing partners across New York City. Our engagement was increasing every month and we truly began to recognize the vast amounts of untapped potential in the app. Our map quickly became crowded with purple pins (geolocated archival photos) as we continued to add new partners and collections to Urban Archive.

“It does seem to me when opening the app that the first map is covered with more purple than a Prince [outfit]” -UA user, Rick C

Beginning in 2018, we started to reconsider the app design for more specific needs. We wanted to create frictionless access to content so we revamped the navigation bar to be more user-friendly. We introduced actionable words for the navigation titles and designed the bar to disappear when not in use. Our ultimate goal was to draw users to certain aspects of the app while also creating space for organic and serendipitous discovery. This journey continued well into 2019 and became even bolder and more innovative in our latest releases with Stories and History Crush.

Stories are curated narratives about specific historical events or themes much like a museum exhibit. In the past, Stories took shape in the form of walks and tours but we decided to merge these lists types to reduce complexity and confusion. This simplification allowed us to emerge with a clearer vision for content creation and delivery in Urban Archive, as well as improve our messaging with partners and users.

History Crush is perhaps our most daring feature and one that our team was excited to put out in the world. Truth be told, History Crush is really an older feature that we reimagined into a more playful experience. Unlike our original Randomizer which, as the name suggests, delivered random photos in our archive to users, History Crush lets users “swipe right” on buildings they like. Confetti also fills the screen whenever a user swipes on 20 photographs in the app.

We are only a few months into the release of this feature, but our users are loving it. It has allowed us to re-engage users as well as diversify the content that surfaces in the app––a challenge that will surely persist as we continue to add newly geolocated archives to the map (we’re currently at 85K!). We are currently testing a more personalized push notification experience where users can be notified if they end up walking by one of the places they’ve previously swiped right on. Stay tuned!

Why a web app?

Urban Archive began with the initial insight that technology creates exciting new opportunities for cultural institutions to connect with a digital generation, but most organizations struggle with cost and capacity to build, sustain, or contract-out the medium. We launched Urban Archive to help close this gap. By taking a mobile-first approach, we have been able to iterate and test ideas quickly, bypassing some of the practical limits that typically constrain physical exhibitions and the institutions that mount them. We are proud to say that we have helped more than 40 organizations across the five boroughs form digital connections with their collections between New York’s past and present, as well as with Urban Archive users.

Even with this success, we’ve long known that a mobile-only platform would limit the experience we could create and the audience we could reach. As we talked with museum professional and lead technologists, hailing from all over the city, we realized that the platform would need to evolve from its early focus on “collection mobility” to something a little more “heavy-duty.”

We built the web app to provide easy access to Urban Archive from any device and for whatever the purpose — be it serendipitous discovery or historical research. With our new site, you can easily use the map or search tool to uncover something new about the history of New York. You can also read through over 300 curated Stories, sourced from our various partner organizations.

What are some of the goals and plans for the team going forward?

This first launch is a major milestone for us and we have much more to come. In the future, we plan to:

  • Create user accounts for bookmarks/list creation
  • Optimize search, we still have a lot of work to do on this
  • Introduce new datasets that would complement our growing archive
  • Play up the social aspect of the site

How can I help?

  • Help us improve Urban Archive by giving us constructive feedback, you can email us at team@urbanarchive.nyc.
  • Try it out and spread the word! Every little bit helps.

Thanks for reading! As always, you can download Urban Archive for iOS here or visit our web app at www.urbanarchive.org. Have fun with it and let us know what you find!

Urban Archive

The City is Your Museum 🚀 www.urbanarchive.nyc

Thanks to Katie Smillie

Sam Addeo

Written by

Sam Addeo

urbanist / @urbanarchiveny / www.samaddeoo.com

Urban Archive

The City is Your Museum 🚀 www.urbanarchive.nyc

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