This page shows us our own daily journal.
Home page showing the ui we can use to plan drift.
This page shows the joy pins.

JoyWalk

Don't just find the way. Find the feeling.

Inspiration

Most maps answer one question: how fast can I get there? But anyone who has walked through Delhi in the heat knows the fastest path isn't always the one you'd choose. Sometimes you want shade, a quieter stretch, a small garden, or a spot that makes you pause.

So we asked a different question: what if technology could help us choose not just where we go, but how the journey feels?

What it does

JoyWalk is a mood-aware walking route planner for Delhi NCR. Choose a start, a destination, and a mood: restorative, curious, brisk, or contemplative. JoyWalk then offers three ways to walk the same journey:

Direct: the efficient baseline
Shade-seeking: the cooler, greener option
Mood-guided scenic: shaped by how you want to feel

The routes appear side by side on an interactive map, with the trade-offs laid out clearly:

Estimated distance and walking time
Greenery and ambient sound
Micro-moments: small points of interest that can turn a walk into a memory

Beyond planning, you can explore community-style Joy Pins and keep a walk journal, so a good moment stays with you after the walk ends.

How we built it

JoyWalk is a responsive web app built with Next.js and React, with Leaflet powering the interactive map. Underneath is a graph-based routing model over a seeded network of Delhi NCR locations and corridors. Each route mode weighs distance against corridor attributes differently, so the same start and destination can produce genuinely different paths.

Planning, comparison, map exploration, and journaling all live in one dashboard. The project can optionally connect to Neo4j, but it also runs entirely on bundled demo data, so anyone can try it instantly.

Challenges we ran into

How do you teach a routing algorithm what "joyful" means? Joy is personal. Instead of declaring one route best for everyone, we let people express what they want from a walk and let that shape the path.

The second challenge was honesty. Canopy, noise, and wellbeing values can look very authoritative on a map. We wanted to be clear that they are modelled estimates from prototype data, not live street measurements, so we made transparency part of the product rather than a footnote.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Turning a subjective idea, "a joyful walk," into something a routing system can act on
Showing three distinct walking styles side by side on one map, so trade-offs are visible at a glance
Going beyond the line on the map with micro-moments, Joy Pins, and a journal that capture how a walk feels
Building an interface that is upfront about what its data is and isn't
Making it easy to try: it runs locally on bundled demo data, with Neo4j as an optional upgrade

What we learned

The details around a route can matter as much as the route itself.
A polished map experience needs more than a drawn line. It needs readable information, responsive layouts, and clear explanations of where the data comes from.
Good design means thinking beyond the algorithm: how people choose a mood, understand a trade-off, and notice what's around them.

What's next for JoyWalk

JoyWalk is a prototype, not a live navigation or wellbeing service. Its routes and environmental values come from a modelled demo network, and walking times are estimates. Next, we want to: