Paper&pen, Figma, TorchAR, Premiere Pro
Aug. - Dec. 2019
UX Designer & Researcher. I worked with my team to plan and conduct research activities. I led the design and prototyping work. After the course ended, I took the initiative to improve the design based on user feedback.
Yangyi Xu, Candice Butts, Yash Lara, Gurudutt Perichetla, Sonam Singh
In Fall 2020, the Georgia Aquarium will open a new expansion titled ‘Predator’, which will be home to some of the most recognizable apex predators in the ocean. The exhibit aims to provide a fresh perspective on the vital role sharks play in the health of the ocean, and change people’s perception towards sharks from ‘Fear to Fascination’. While the exhibit is designed with this narrative, our task was to seek technological interventions to support the goal of exhibit and enhance the visiting experience.
We met in the aquarium with our stakeholders, where they presented the materials and videos of the upcoming exhibit, and explained their expectations of this project.
To understand the problem space better, we want to learn more about the problems the visitors are facing in the current environment in the aquarium, and how their perception of sharks are like. We used 4 research methods to gauge a better understanding. We want to learn more about these three main aspects:
- How does users engage with the current exhibits in the aquarium?
- Visitors’ motivations, expectations and experiences?
- What's the existing perception towards sharks?
Who are the visitors? why do they visit?
How do they engage in the exhibits currently?
Synthesizing the results from the discovery phase, we’re now ready to define the problem and the opportunity space, the specific learner, their learning context, and learning goals, based on what we summarized high-level criteria to ground our design.
By synthesizing the results from the research phase, we can define the core user needs and frustrations of our user -- the aquarium visitors.
Given the research data and defined problem, we did intensive brainstorming sessions and generated three divergent design alternatives. To seek feedback on the concepts, we had following feedback sessions.#1 Heuristic Evaluation with stakeholders from the aquarium(education team, floor staff, industry experts)#2 Survey for visitors of the aquarium#3 Poster Sessions with peer designers and design experts
Based on the insights for the feedback sessions, we came up with a combination of divergent designs.
Selected Features from three design alternatives
- Anthropomorphization of sharks (help build empathy)
- Involving the gamification (enhance immersion)
- Create a narrative of sharks (help tell the story)
We conducted a prototypic walkthrough to gather feedback of the concept. We used the Wizard of Oz Technique, built a gallery in a classroom and tried to provide participants as real the experience as possible. 8 participants were divided into 2 groups, while each group was followed by a moderator and note-taker.
Risk of missing parts of the story due to the continuous storyline
Confusion about what to focus on - AR experience or actual sharks?
Holding a device to view content is uncomfortable and unattractive - especially when the visitor comes with partners.
Make storytelling an individual part not depending on the position in the exhibition
Provide immersive experience that is not distracting from the real-world experience
An AR headset will allow immersive, unintrusive transition between digital and real-world experience.
We chose Magic Leap as the device for the experience. Our stakeholders supported this decision for two reasons: Georgia Aquarium has a long term collaboration with Mahic Leap; It’s feasible to make the experience using Magic Leap as an exclusive experience that the aquarium provides.We’ll be using the controller as the main input method.
We defined four key design criteria to help ground our design. The criteria are based on what we summarized from user research and stakeholders’ expectations: any proposed designs must involve the Aquarium’s goal of educating the public about sharks while entertaining guests and increasing visitor turnout.
A shark assistant picked by the user will be leading the user through the experience. This anthropomorphic approach aims to arouse sympathy of visitors towards sharks. With the shark assistant’s narrative, the whole experience will be more organized.
This feature allows users to get shark information in immersive environment without referring to multiple information sources.
Through playing AR games and reading AR stories, visitors will be exposed to conservation stories and educational materials in a more fun way.
With our prototype on TorchAR and a presentation video ready, we conducted expert evaluation with 4 experts from Georgia Aquarium and Georgia Tech, and conducted user testing with 4 participants in total.
Synthesizing the testing results, we were able to gather issues in content, usability and experience of the design, and gave design recommendations. These findings recommendations helped iterate the design in the next phase.
From the evaluation sessions, we found there exists difficulty in using the magic leap headset and the system itself.
I realized in the previous design there are several problems:
- Required the users to do the ‘click’ action without showing them how to click
- Multiple sentences in one frame increased the difficulty to read
- Shark assistants represented by 2D icons lost vividness
- Instruction page for the menu lacked explanations
The shark assistant will be leading the user through the onboarding. This anthropomorphic approach aims to arouse sympathy of visitors towards sharks. With the shark assistant’s narrative, the whole experience will be more organized.
Fish finder feature could be triggered by either interacting with the shark assistant or clicking on the menu.
The ocean cleaning game could be triggered by either interacting with the shark assistant in the game area or clicking on the menu. After the game ends, there will be a recap of the problem sharks are facing.
The shark assistant will be triggered to recap the conservation message; send photos and recording.
