PaperChase AR: Scavenger Hunt AR Experience
Key Methods
Concept, User Journey, Rapid Prototyping
My Role
AR Designer, Unity Prototyper
Team
Alan (Unity) x Alfonsus (Comic Artist, UI Design)
Tools
Unity, C#, ARKit, Photoshop
Duration
3 months (part-time), 2018-19
Client
MeshMinds, ArtxTechForGood Exhibition
Overview
MeshMinds 2.0 ArtxTechForGood Exhibition
The MeshMinds 2.0 ArtxTechForGood Exhibition in Singapore ArtScience Museum featured digital interactive installations by local artists and creative technologists themed around United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I was commissioned by MeshMinds as a creative technologist to actualize PaperChase, a concept by local comic artist Alfonsus.
PaperChase was conferred the Marina Bay Sands Sustainability Award amongst 20 installations for its innovative concept and execution of UN SGDs.
Problem
Recycling is one of Singapore’s biggest environmental hurdles.
Onsite survey of 3 malls reveal 1 in 5 bins are recycling bins - thats 1 in 5 floors on average.
2018 Questionnaire reveals inconvenience as biggest friction in recycling.
Contaminated items cause most recyclables to become un-recyclable.
Concept
Gamify locating recycling bins to make their locations sticky, & tell a narrative that educates on cleaning recyclables.
The Inspiration
Alfonsus was inspired by a scavenger hunt event where he had to find Pikachu stickers in a mall to win prizes. Returning to the same mall, he could remember the location of every sticker he found - because it was engaging & memorable. What if we take this idea and gamify locating recycling bins?
The Concept
A collaboration between me, an AR creative, and Alfonsus, a comic artist, Paperchase AR is an AR scavenger hunt experience where users locate recycling bins in the exhibition and unlock 4 parts of an AR comic that tells a story of a salmon monster born from contaminated recycling.
The Goals
Locate: Users will remember the locations of recycling bins through the gamified scavenger hunt.
Clean: Users will educated to clean their recyclables through the moral of the comic story.
Plan
Rapid Prototyping
Validate core concepts of scavenger hunt and AR comic with prototypes, measuring both engagement and intended outcomes.
Prototype 1: Validate Scavenger Hunt
Locating and scanning markers placed around a building compound will unlock comic chapters displayed through an on-screen comic reader.
All users enjoyed the scavenger hunt experience.
All users surveyed remembered marker locations.
Prototype 2: Validate Comic in AR
Scanning comics placed around a room will unlock chapters of an AR comic experience.
Exploring and going behind the comic rewards users with the map to next marker.
Observed plenty of physical engagement with AR comic.
All users enjoyed the AR comic experience, and wanted more.
Onsite: Increase Immersion
AR comic experience is improved with multi-layered AR comic strips & a voice-over. Completing the experience rewards users with a mini marker that unlocks the full story.
All users listened to the entire voice-over instead of skipping ahead.
All users surveyed remembered bin locations & moral of the story.
User Journey & Screen Flow
Onsite Setup
4 recycling bin stations are setup across the exhibition, where the user will scavenger hunt them to unlock and finish the 4-part AR comic story.
The overall user journey is as follows:
At each station, players scan the marker on the recycling bin to reveal an AR comic. When fully read, players can peek behind the AR comic to reveal the map to the next station. On clearing all stations, players are rewarded with a mini AR marker card souvenir, which will display the entire comic in AR.
AR Interaction Design
Designed around physical engagement, users are encouraged to move, look between and around the AR comics.
Educating users on AR interaction
In the earlier prototypes, some users stood still and read the comic like an on-screen 2D comic, some even trying to pinch zoom the comic.
With the AR elements detailed below, users are encouraged to explore the AR comic in physical space. When presented in 3 dimensional elements, users intuitively move physically to interact with the AR comic, and learn that AR interaction is all about physical engagement.
Multi-layered AR comic
A simple approach to utilise depth of AR by splitting comic pages into multiple layers, to encourage users to physically explore the AR. Users were fascinated by the physical parallax, and observed to move from standing at a distance to standing really close and peering between the layers.
Map hidden behind the AR comic
When users walk behind the AR comic, the comic fades away and is replaced by the map to the next comic location. This interaction is intended reward users with a sense of discovery for exploring and performing physical interactions.
Software Development
AR Feasibility Review
Several AR platforms were assessed to identify the best platform of choice, including Unity with Vuforia, ARCore, and ARKit. In late 2018, ARKit was found to be most stable and featured stable world & marker tracking. Hence, ARKit marker-based world tracking was tested and found most suitable for further development.
Software Development
For the 2nd prototype onwards, a software architecture was derived from the user journey, to ensure modularity and scalability for future interations.
A main controller script singleton tracks user’s progress and journey, and an AR scanner script detects marker inputs and relays to the controller.
Each AR marker-comic is modular, inheriting the same parameters, methods and interactions, and is manipulated by the main controller.
For more details on PaperChase AR, please reach me at mail@alanng.me