YĚXĪ / Green Treasure Map

Green is not the same as accessible.

Guangzhou is full of green. But a park on a map is not the same as a walk that fits your afternoon, your mood, or the weather. Access is shaped by shade, water, crowds, and time—not just distance.

I wanted to build a guide that started with a person's question—“What kind of walk do I need today?”—rather than a list of “must-visit” places.

A guide, a map, and a quiet algorithm.

YĚXĪ is an independent, ad-free, no-tracking field guide. Readers can browse 25 trails across 11 Guangzhou districts and five surrounding cities, or answer six questions about mood, company, time, distance, scene, and arrival.

A weighted model—mood 32%, company 18%, time 16%, distance 12%, scene 10%, arrival 7%, weather 5%—suggests a trail. Live weather from Open-Meteo adjusts the result. All calculation happens in the browser; there is no login and no tracking.

The project also distributed 500+ printed booklets and placed QR maps in local cafés, so the guide could travel beyond the screen.

Green space is a public health resource.

The project treats access as a relationship between a person and a place. A trail can be close and still feel unavailable if it is exposed, crowded, or hard to reach. A good recommendation has to hold all of those things at once.

That is the same lesson I keep returning to in health communication: the evidence is only half the work. The other half is the shape of the day, the body, and the life that has to carry it.

A map tells you where to go. A good guide helps you decide whether to go at all.

Translate a feeling, not just a location.

The hardest part was not the map. It was translating a feeling—“I need a slow walk”—into questions a tool could answer without pretending to know too much.

I learned to design for uncertainty: to offer a suggestion, explain the trade-offs, and leave the final decision with the person. That feels like the right role for a public health tool.