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GADAR is a handheld mobile application designed to enhance city tourism by integrating Augmented Reality (AR). The app guides users to important landmarks, overlays historical and informational content through AR, and enables capturing immersive photos with virtual elements.
The goal of GADAR is to provide an engaging and user-friendly augmented reality experience for people who would like to take quick tours around cities they visit.
Making city exploration more informative and engaging, by turning a typical sightseeing tour into a dynamic learning experience.
The UK’s outbound travel industry is growing fast, expected to reach US$ 90.46 billion in 2024 and more than double by 2034.
More people are traveling solo, especially ages 25–44, with 66% taking over two trips a year and enjoying activities like dining out, shopping, and sightseeing.
We started by sketching how we wanted to onboard Okiki on the platform, hut what was important here which is supposed to be our “aha” moment for this user is the selection of avatar.
To go on the tour, we were focused on how immersive the experience will be, How Okiki would find a tour site, the features he be able to access while on the tour.
This flow is important to this persona, the idea was to have a simple two to three step process for the user to over the AR effect on the screen and take the picture which automatically gets saved to the user’s gallery.
Our design system leverages a purposeful set of color styles as the perfect mix. When it came to deciding the color, contrast was critical for ensuring text is legible.
We added elements for navigation, conversations between the virtual guide and user, 3d elements to visualize the AR experience.
Here the user gets to learn a little written history about the build. By tapping on the “details” button, the user can see the the tabs to learn.
The user can also scroll to see more text below.
Here the users gets to learn about the evolution of the building.
We used 3d buildings that would be projected on the screen for the user to swap from oldest to newest.
This is another extra detail the user can learn about the building, to see different pictures of different views.
With this the user can see the:
Front view, Side view, Aerial view, Inside view and old photos if available.
The final platform resulted from several rounds of user feedback and design iteration.
Here are the core features of the final design:
The final platform resulted from several rounds of user feedback and design iteration.
Here are the core features of the final design:
One very important feature which was implemented for the second persona is the AR picture, which allows the user to project some specific category of AR element on the screen and interact or take pictures with this element.
Here the cloth change picture, which allows users to project 3d clothes on any human the system scans.
One very important feature which was implemented for the second persona is the AR picture, which allows the user to project some specific category of AR element on the screen and interact or take pictures with this element.
Here the weather change, the users can switch between different weather condition, by tapping on the icons on the side which overlays the condition like “rain” as shown.
This allows users project several animals on the screen and take pictures with these animals.
Users can select more than one animal, users can also tap and hold the animals to move . them around to their preferred position on screen.
The next step was to carry out the testing of our prototype to see if our implementation is usable, we started by coming up with a test plan.
Pre-Test Survey Result
Prior to the testing, participants were asked if they knew about Augmented Reality, all participants were familiar with the concept.
The participants were between ages 18 and 45, it included 1 female and 4 males, and all 5 participants were students.
60% of participants had used Handheld Augmented Reality Mobile Applications before.
During the usability study, after every task participants were asked questions to gather qualitative data.
After the moderated usability study, participants completed a Handheld Augmented Reality Usability Scale on a Microsoft form to gather quantitative data.
Task 1 - Create an account
Participants felt the task was simple and straight forward
Some participants like selecting their avatar, they found it fun and engaging.
“I like the social login, it’s straightforward”
Task 2 - Select a location, navigate to the location
Some participants wanted to see a preview of the location before starting the tour or navigating to the location.
Some participants were concerned about not noticing their environment while navigating to the location.
Participants liked the sound feedback from the virtual tour guide.
Some participants liked the arrow visual feedback while navigating to the location.
“Not seeing the preview of the location is concerning, I want to know what the place looks like before leaving”
Task 3 - Learn details about the location
Participants felt this task was easy and served it’s purpose
Some participants did not understand the “blueprint” aspect of the details.
“I don’t understand the blueprint, I did not learn anything from going through it”
Task 4 - Engage in questions and answer
Participants liked the question and answer section, they found it engaging and fun
Some participants were concerned about the avatar being distracting during the experience.
“I really like this feature, it’s fun!”
Task 5 - Take AR-infused pictures with Avatar,
specifically take pictures with animals.
Some participants found this confusing at first and needed some explaining on how to navigate this feature.
Some participants were confused on how to take the picture.
When they eventually got it, some participants liked the 3d elements on the screen.
“There’s no direction on how to take the picture, I don’t know the button to press to take the picture”
The overall usability score reflects a very positive user experience and this show that the app performs well across usability metrics.
This score still shows there’s a lot of improvement to be done, specifically some tweaks on the picture taking feature, and navigation to the location.
The SUS was calculated from the data acquired. Below is a breakdown of it:
84
Overall Score
Add visual cues to help users understand the take picture flow better.
Add preview before tour: This will allow users get a quick glimpse into what visiting the location would entail.
Adding tooltips to the picture section
Adding mini-preview before tour
