By Zachary Taylor (s3657197)

Queery is a location based geo-tagging platform that focuses on user-generated content surrounding queer first date stories— this could include but is not limited to users first kisses, first time holding hands along the street, first time seeing a drag show. Anything queer related that ties back to some sort of queer awakening or queer empowerment and queer first date, Queery is wanting to hear about it.

After choosing their preferred language— users must create a profile that tells us a bit of about themselves.

While the profile will be discreet in giving out personal information for safety reasons, we want to know that there’s someone behind the screen so people can feel a bit less alone when reading someone else’s stories.

All Queery would like to know is the users age, pronouns, sexual orientation and their first name! Pictures, videos and personal details will not be able to be shared publicly purely for safety reasons. While societies attitudes towards queer people have changed drastically over time, some people have yet to get on board with the idea. Through doing this, we hope to protect our audience as much as possible.

Once users have done that, it will bring them to our homepage. As you can see on the screen there will be plenty of pins and stories to choose from. To make things easier, users will be able to select stories based on their location. If you type into the search bar below, then Queery will be able to take you to that location. Here is an example of that happening.

And here it comes up on the homepage. Users will have the opportunity to pinch and zoom and scroll across the map, but for the purpose of this prototype it remains stationery. Another way users will be able to sift through stories is based on the mood associated with the story.

This can be done by selecting the Mood button at the bottom screen and selecting what they want. Users will be able to associate their stories based on relevant emotions that may influence the general tone of the story when they are crafting their post. This includes inspirational, liberating, happy, sad, funny etc.

Creating a post is designed to be as easy as possible. All one has to do is select the new post button at the bottom of the screen, and tell us what it is they want to say.

They will have to enter a title, location, moods associated with the story and be able type as much as they want. The choice behind a lack of word limit on the app was driven by Proboscis’ aforementioned work- I was very much inspired by how people were submitting creative essays to describe a space and thought that would be an elevated approach to this app. These submissions will be screened and approved by Queery staff members to ensure the safety of those included is protected, as well as if it is appropriate for other people to see.

This is what it looks like when it is displayed on the home screen by other users. Once a pin is created, this what users will be able to see. Users will also be given the option to save specific stories that they enjoy by clicking on the star above the title. This will work almost like a rating system for each post to indicate to users that the story is likeable. If you look in the top of the pin, we can see the number of people who have saved the post within the star.

To view your saved stories, just press the star in the bottom left corner. Here you will be see the title of the story, location and the creators names. This will be displayed in chronological order of when they were saved. And yeah that’s really all there is to it!