Project 3: UC AR-verse

Objective: Design an Augmented Reality experience for visitors to UC's campus that would present digital content that highlights research, learning and student activities taking place within UC buildings or on UC's campus.

Group: Keerthi Sekar and Anna Chambers

Presentation & Demo Video
C-Goals
1. Research
2. Video
3. Prototype Content Creator Portal
  1. Figma (Wireframe)
B-Goals - Mobile Device Platform
1. Video
2. Finding AR Content
3. Displaying AR Content
4. Interacting with AR Content
A-Goals - ARVision 2024 (Wearable Device)
1. Video
2. Finding AR Content
3. Displaying AR Content
4. Interacting with AR Content

Presentation & Demo Video

Slides: Presentation

Project 3 Presentation.pdf

C-Goals

Research

In order to understand how UC faculty and students create content for this AR experience - we sampled the real world to see how it's done right now, interviewed current UC students, and searched what content would be added if it was in the AR-verse experience (current student organizations and research labs).

Full Research Data here: Project 3 Research Data.docx (preview is below)

Real World - UC Fliers and Bulletin Boards

Real World - UC Webpages

Analysis of Real-World Examples

Themes:

Upcoming events are very prominent
Mission statement/about us on the home page
Categories of different types of information
Large use of QR codes
News update

Codes:

Events – Blue Border
About – Green Border
QR Code - Red Border
Events and QR Code – Orange border
Membership – Yellow border
News – Purple
News and About – Black

Summarized Results:

There are multiple student clubs/research that coexist in the same space/building
- Prioritize what to show when
Each group has a lot of information they need to share
- Need to show information specific to first-time viewers.
Lots of fliers with quick information/QR codes.
- Need a way to show a small amount of information at a glance and more when the user indicates that they are interested
Repetition of fliers
- Need to limit on how many an organization can post at a time and where.

Interview Questions Asked:

Before you joined UC, what did you know about how to get involved on campus?

When you took a tour of UC - what resources were you given about research and student clubs?

Did you use these resources when you joined UC?

Did you gain any information from the student org fair? If so, did you join any clubs after attending the fair?

What is your favorite aspect of student life?

When you were a prospective student, what was 1 resource you wished you had when researching UC?

Summarized Results:

Before joining - unaware of any of the activities on campus (relied on freshman orientation)
Tours focused on the buildings and academic programs mainly, had to ask for specific information about the work done at UC
Org Fair was helpful to see what types of clubs to get involved in - CampusLink was better for following up on where to go and when clubs meet
Campus Vibes/student environment, Football games, student culture
Learn more about student jobs on campus, professors doing research (open student positions)

General Brainstorming of design set-up after analyzing the research gathered

Prototype: Content Creator Portal

Purpose:

Student Organizations and Professors with research labs can create AR experiences to deploy across the campus for others to see

Techniques used:

Narrative Sketching
Storyboarding
Wireframing with Figma

The demo to the right is the prototyped UI in Figma.

Storyboard of Creator Portal

Storyboard depicted above shows how the user can deploy their organization's AR experiences to UC AR-verse.

Sketch of Digital Flier Creation

Referenced in the AR View Editor panel, organizations can create virtual fliers they can add throughout the UC AR-verse. Research shows purpose of creating this functionality.

B-Goals (Mobile Device Platform)

We assume the user has access to an AR-compatible mobile phone, and they will interact primarily through touch interactions on their phone. When the user holds the phone up, with the AR application open, it will display our content on top of the world captured by the built-in camera and onboard sensors.

Finding AR Content

Below is the Narrative Sketches of the final designs. These designs were derived from the design challenges and research.

Finding Individual AR Content

Experience starts once the camera recognizes the pointed gesture and virtual models augement onto physical location

Finding AR Content Cross-Campus

3D "Street" Preview to view all the locations where there is an AR experience

10 min x 5 min Design Challenge Method: Challenege 1

Purpose of this challenge was to sketch how to find AR Content in a segmented portion of the entire experience

Alternatives to Design Challenge 1 drawn here

10 min x 5 min Design Challenge Method: Challenege 2

Purpose of this challenge was to sketch how to find AR Content in a segmented portion of the entire experience

Alternatives to Design Challenge 1 drawn here

Displaying AR Content

To show to we designed the displaying of content for the user, we used 3 main examples of hybrid sketches to demonstrate this.

Example Set 1: Solar Car

3D model of car
Text descriptions with arrows pointing to parts of the car
Location: In front of Baldwin hall

Example Set 2: DAAP Fashion Show

Flip book
Images: Sketches of designs
Visualization: Computer mockup of designs
Video: Fashion show
Location: fashion classroom in DAAP

Example Set 3: Chemistry Research

Interactive game

Beakers of chemicals. Combine to see chemical reactions

Text descriptions of chemical compounds
QR Code linking to research website

Solar Car Hybrid Sketches

Interactions:

Tap
Rotation (Camera Tracking)
Zoom

DAAP Fashion Show

Interactions:

Flip
Tap

Chemistry Research

Interactions:

Tap
Pinch Gesture
Animations

Interacting with AR Content

This section goes over the designs of interactions with the mobile device AR experience. The designs were done after brainstorming as a team with the sketches on a large display.

Zooming in & out

Tap Interaction

Zoom Mock Interaction Study

Tap Mock Interaction Study

A-Goals: AR Vision 2024 (Wearable Platform)

Scenario: The user is viewing the same content through the latest-and-greatest AR glasses invented in 2024, which will be the ARvision-2024. The ARvision-2024 can display graphics within the frame of the lenses of their glasses, overlaid on top of real-world objects. The ARvision-2024 is assumed that it can display graphics within the frame of the lenses of their glasses, overlaid on top of real-world objects.

Finding AR Content

Narrative Sketches from 10x5 Design Challenge

10 min x 5 min Design Challenge Method

Displaying AR Content

Using a wearable AR headset would have similar displaying of content like discussed in the B-goals sketches and design challenges – the interactions would be more gesture related however, since the wearable allows you to be “hands-free”.

Interacting with AR Content

The interactions designed in B-goals were adapted to a wearable platform. The Mock Interaction studies for the features are seen below. **Imagine the screen of the sketch is being viewed by glasses – unable to take picture of user wearing glasses and interacting closely with the sketch**

Two Handed Gestures: Zooming in & out