Raymond Cheng
Project 2: Augmenting Paper as an Information Career
Goal of this Project
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The mission of this project is to make an AR solution on top of a paper product that is used frequently in our daily lives. We wanted to enhance the customer or the business experience regarding this paper product. If possible, we also hope to increase the usability and functionality of the paper by using the 3D visualization and sense of realness that AR provides.
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Brainstorming Process
In the brainstorming process, we adopted the technique of creating mindmaps to map out the types of paper people normally use on a daily basis. We identified books, scratch paper, sticky notes, newspaper, calendar, etc. After that we moved on from the paper products into the possible solutions that can enhance users' experience. We came up with a lot of fun and interesting AR solutions that can be built on paper but because there is too much we have to narrow down our ideas. Through the process of voting, we ended up with the following paper products: maps, receipts, pamphlets, and instruction manuals.
Storyboarding and Speed Dating
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After figuring out the types of paper, we went on to establish our ideas and draw out the storyboards. After storyboarding, we carried out speed dating with students around on campus to see what they think about them. Here are our storyboards and their corresponding feedback collected from users:
Point-of-View
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Out of the four ideas we had, we found out that the AR menu app idea yields the most positive feedback so we settled on further work on it and devise the point-of-view.
We quickly came together as a team and derived our potential users' goals and frustration. We found three potential users: food bloggers, travellers, and children. A pain that food bloggers have is that they need to buy a lot of food every time to show their viewers, but sometimes they need just an accurate depiction (better if it's 3D) of what the food really looks like that can be shown to their mass audience. In addition, travellers might want to try out new cuisines but their inability to read the local language or lack of knowledge in technical food terms let them unable to choose the food they enjoy. Lastly, children usually want to try out new food but they cannot read menu. Thus, we hope to address the frustrations that each of our potential users face and enhance the dimensions as follows:
AR Menu Prototype
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In the prototyping stage, we built our app using Unity IDE and Vuforia Engine to create AR markers for 3D generation. We set the texts on the menus as markers so that when a user's mobile phone is pointed toward the texts, the system automatically transcribes it into accurate 3D visualization of what the food would actually look like. This shows to the customers what the food would really like, avoiding any confusion regarding the specific ingredient of the food that they might misunderstand. We also added interactions so that when a user touches the AR food, they can select different sizes.
Demo Video
My Contributions and Reflection
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In the brainstorming and design stage, I assisted my team in thinking about AR applications toward paper uses. I came up with the instructional manual idea since as a electronics enthusiast who buys lots of devices, I would want AR technology to help me better understand how to use the devices. It is sometimes a pain to read the textual instructions when it could be 3D videos and animations.
Working with my other teammate, we worked on the storyboard for the AR receipts for personal financing and AR food menus. Throughout the process, we were pondering about the user problem, how our solution effectively addresses the issue, and the resulting benefits they can get from using our solutions.
I am also fully responsible for making the demo video. As this is the first time for me to movie editing, I learned a lot throughout the process how to cut, adjust, and trim video clips. I gathered the video snippets of the prototype taken by my teammates and compiled them in a way that would most entertain the audience. I also figured out how to harmonise the video with the audio by choosing the right songs and inserting them at the right time.
In this project, I learned a lot about teamwork and collaboration throughout the entire process of brainstorming, interview, evaluation, design, prototyping. These all strengthen my individual abilities upon a larger team. Additionally, this project has induced me to edit videos for the first time, sparking some interest towards it. I would certainly try to make some more interesting videos in the future to leverage the skills I have developed.