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MOMENTS is an AR-driven app I conceptualised to give a sneak peak of immersive events in London before booking to help them decide which one they actually enjoy. The goal of this app is to facilitate deeper interactions and engagement towards the users. Through this project I wanted to push the boundaries of user-friendly interfaces and create something unique, engaging and effective.
This was the final major project that was done during my time in the Interactive Media Practice program at the University of Westminster in 2022.
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Customers are more concerned with purchasing into experiences that make them feel involved and connected since typical purchasing has become boring and mundane.
The only platform where the latest and upcoming immersive event could be found is social media. There were no websites or apps dedicated to immersive events at this time.
Typical customers would appreciate being able to read reviews and comments from other people before making a purchase.
An event booking app (via mobile and Ipad) that provides event booking feature with the help of augmented reality.
The app aims to let users explore various events that are trending and upcoming all at one place. It will help users to find the latest events happening around them. It also allows users to create a list of events that they like and save them for later use.
In order to make the decision beforehand, a community is established within the app. This community will help users to make a decision beforehand by providing them with information and asking questions.
The UK specially London is a hotspot for immersive content creators, thanks to its strong community of entrepreneurs, technologists, educators, developers and content makers. According to my research I believe that the UK has the potential to become the best place in the world for creating immersive content and applications.
According to socio.events companies that prioritise experiences over products/ features have a 200% greater chance of referrals and 25% more loyal customers. Therefore providing a delightful experience to customers is the most important thing that would also leave a lasting impressions that is personal and unforgettable to the customer.
I conducted a user survey on google forms to get to the most demographic with open end questions to get more understanding of the users, and to prepare for follow up interviews. Total 15 questions were generated.
Click here to find the survey questions.
Click here to find the in insights that came across.
One on one interviews: After the survey, we reached out for one-on-one interviews with 2 of the participants who are more likely to be our target users.
Later, In order to understand how existing players are using technology to augment real-world experiences, I spent a lot of time (and space) on my phone, downloading, playing (and analyzing) apps.
I looked at a variety of experiences - some travel related, while others had an interesting application of AR in their app. I went on to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each app in order to help me while designing. The main aim of this app is to achieve the maximum engagement and be the most interactive amongst others.
To find in detail competitive analysis
Click here
Moments targets GenZ and Millennials living in major cities in Europe like London, Paris or Milan. Since digital natives, young consumers have been raised in an era of interconnectivity and are always open to new innovations in technology. Their professions range from lawyers, journalists, engineers, designers, tech folks – people who more open to integrating technology in their lives. At an initial stage we targeted only London and can expand after third year.
I have divided business model to understand if a method that validates a solution can actually solves a problem for real customers in a dynamic marketplace and ensures product and market fit. It helps the entire team and the stakeholders reach a shared vision for efficiency. Therefore I categorised it into 4 different categories that I found is important to generate before diving into the details of the project.
Click here to read thoroughly in pdf.
To get the more insights of the app I produced the lean canvas that was used to mitigate the risk and uncertainty associated with launching the product as well as ensuring product-market fit in the long term. One of the biggest reason I used lean canvas is that it allowed me to gather a significant amount of crucial information in a reasonable amount of time.
SWOT Analysis was done at this stage which opens up new doors for brainstorming ideas and a more structured analysis. Our team tried to have a positive attitude and look for more possibilities.
When thinking about designing a booking experience via AR, there were several use cases that came to mind such as travel & tourism, events, movies, workplace and education. For this project, I chose to explore the domain of event booking and the most interesting and hyped up one. Based on that, I created a persona of someone that would use this app and considered the different goals and problems users may have.
Furthermore, to analyse the problem I did a 5Ws brainstorming that helped me with my research. The 5Ws is a process of streamlining.
It allowed me to form a less vague picture of what is required to be researched so that I don’t blindly walk into obscureness. Also, to traverse from ambiguity to clarity regarding what is to be researched.
I did an HMW exercise that was intended to look for opportunities, not problems or solutions. have taken the insights and pain points of the target audience and tried to positively reframe them.
Finally, I did the MoSCoW method that is a great prioritisation technique, that includes must’s, should’s, could’s, and will not have to avoid adding “over-features” and would be hard to know what works and what doesn’t. Therefore I planned and gradually rolled out the solutions.
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No matter how much I plan, a large part of my design process is intuitive. This also means that I sometimes get carried away and can't stop exploring. Below are some of my explorations...
The app was developed on Unity 3D via Vuforia and AR Foundations. Target tracking and face tracking were used to built AR filters that were meant to be made according to the immersive events in London to give users best and curated experience that build excitement. Different AR Filters were tested to the target audience then implementing their feedback in an improved iteration. Here are the few snapshot I took while testing AR. First one is implementing of single target tracking of Demogorgan 3D model for Stranger Things- Immersive Experience and second one is implementing multiple image tracking of Dinosaurs 3D model for Jurassic World- Immersive Experience.
Using the feedback and insights gained from research, analysis and sketching, a mid-fidelity wireframes were created to begin usability testing.
STAGE 1:
STAGE 2:
A usability testing was then conducted in 2 stages to determine the improvements of the product and identify new ideas to satisfy users needs and desires.
In Stage 1, mid-fi mockups were tested with the target audience to improve final high fidelity screens.
Final usability testing was conducted on Maze because the results were rapid that enables me to collect both qualitative and quantitative data in one place. Moreover, it was easy to use and share the link to test conveniently. Here the main motive was to study heatmaps, misclicks, time-spent on the most important given task that was booking experience to improve overall experience of the app.
Dashboard that build excitement
Through the main screen of the app, based on my insights, I wanted to give people the flexibility to search for experiences they are interested in using a variety of filters. I also chose to use strong colours, imagery and type to catch people's attention and allude to the exciting journey they are about to embark on. Moreover, the search button allows users to find what they're looking for quickly.
Something For Everyone
I learned from my research that users like feeling in control. In order to give them a variety of experiences, the app has different types of filters each connected to the specific immersive event that can be experiences wherever users want. By giving people this feature the engagement, experience and overall fun build users momentum to keep coming back to the app.
Delightful Popups
The app celebrates every goal with delightful popups that encourage people to continue their journey. These kind of interactions give the user feedback, both good and bad, on what the current status of the system is, what the result of their actions will be or what has already happened as a result of their action and tells them what they should do next.
Get maximum engagement with people!
According to my research people enjoy an app that provide its user swiping effect as they say “It’s fun, it’s like a game!” The easy access to these kind of apps allows us to swipe compulsively everywhere we go. Therefore, by introducing swipe action in discoverable screen increase maximum engagement with people and events around them.
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