World of
Choices
AUGMENTED REALITY | UX RESEARCH | BRANDING | UXD
World of choices is an AR interaction game designed to encourage individuals to understand effects of pollution in their surroundings.
Team: Raghul S, Ria Francis, Senjuti Chakraborty, Siddharth Sangal, Siddhika Desai
Guided by: Dr.Prasad Onkar
Reading about different types of pollution or coming across qualitative data is not as effective as it being visible to us in our own familiar surroundings. Through this game, the user is able to visualise particle pollutants around their immediate surroundings and are encouraged to interact with it and in turn make an effort in reducing pollution.
Real time data is displayed along with visual interactions through Augmented reality, in order to call attention to the urgency of the situation.
PROJECT BRIEF
To create an experience using interaction design/ artificial intelligence/ Virtual environments
Go to:
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
In the initial stage, brain-writing and brain-storming sessions were conducted, along with affinity mapping around the theme of making mundane choices pleasurable through the means of AR games.
Ideations were along the lines of making activities like sweeping, mopping, folding clothes, trash segregation and disposal fun and entertaining through gamification. The brainstorm lead to another idea of raising environmental awareness among people, which was the idea which we finally zeroed in on.
CHALLENGES
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Dearth of interactive/ immersive experiences for youth regarding environmental pollution
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Lack of awareness regarding the impact of environmental damage in our immediate localities
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Inability/ limited means to visualise pollution through naked eye
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Lack of availability of different modes of education for students
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Lack of means to equip future generations with the tools necessary to behave in a responsible and informed way towards the environment
DATA
COLLECTION METHODS
PRIMARY RESEARCH
User Surveys and Interviews
FINDINGS
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The survey gave us valuable inputs about how aware people are about the environment around them, the choices people make to stay conscious about their surroundings and the popularity of AR as a medium for gamified learning.
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67.5 % people who attempted the survey were aged 19-30 years and 12.5 % people were aged under 18 years.52.5% were male and 47.5% were female.
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65% people considered themselves moderately aware about their environment, while 17.5% were well-versed and 10% were somewhat aware and 7.5 admitted to not being aware about their environment.
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Majority of the people stayed updated about issues related to the environment through social media and conversations with people around them.
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50% people admitted to littering their surroundings and 30% said they have never littered their surroundings.
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People felt guilt, disgust, shame, bad, regret mostly after littering, while some felt good too.
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80% of people believe their actions have caused pollution in the environment.
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To practice being environmentally conscious people practice things like segregating dry and wet waste, buy sustainable products, throw litter in dustbin only, use less of single use products, use reusable bags, minimise buying behaviour, save water and electricity, use public transport and reduce plastic usage.
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52.5 % people are familiar with augmented reality and 80% people have played augmented reality games previously.
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85% of people have never played an augmented reality game that makes them conscious about their environment.
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75% people would be interested in an augmented reality game that makes them care about the environment.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Literature Review | Case Studies
The secondary research consisted of reading and deriving inspiration from various review of literature, articles, case studies, journals and blogs related to AR/ VR games, an Games for influencing behaviour, AR for learning and education.
This study presents a literature review of previous studies of Augmented Reality (AR) games for learning. The study concluded that AR games for learning generally have positive effects. They found that the most reported effects for AR learning games were the enhancement of learning performance and the learning experience in terms of fun, interest, and enjoyment. They also found that social interactions were encouraged by AR learning games, especially collaboration among students. The most commonly used game elements included quizzes and goal-setting. Extra instructional materials, 3D models, and face-to-face interactions were most frequently used for AR features.
The study analyzed 31 mobile AR devices from the perspectives of technology, pedagogy, and gaming. It presented an analysis of 26 AR platforms that can be used to create mobile AR applications. and then discussed the results in depth and synthesized the data into 13 guidelines for future mobile AR devices developers.
This paper presents a review of practical research papers on augmented reality games for learning. The study evaluates how these games may impact motivation (affective learning outcomes) and knowledge gain (cognitive learning outcomes). For the analysis, the authors have used design patterns for mobile games and Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. The results substantiate the generally assumed motivational potential of augmented reality games. They indicate that augmented reality games may have the potential to bring about cognitive learning outcomes.
The study suggests that there are many different ways for people to be educated and trained with regard to specific information and skills they need. These methods include classroom lectures with textbooks, computers, handheld devices, and other electronic appliances. The choice of learning innovation is dependent on an individual’s access to various technologies and the infrastructure environment of a person’s surroundings.
MARKET RESEARCH
Market Study of AR/VR Games
Augmented reality (AR) gaming aims at connecting the virtual world with the real world and utilizes the existing environment to create a playing field with it. AR gaming operates in devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and portable gaming systems. Rising affordability of AR games coupled with increasing availability are key factors that are anticipated to drive the global AR gaming market.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for AR Gaming estimated at US$3 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$33.5 Billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 41.3% over the analysis period 2020-2027. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) market size is at developing stage in India. In the last few years, only about 170 startups have emerged in this space. However, in the next five years, this industry is likely to see a major growth rate.
Apple, Inc., Augmented Pixels, Inc., Blippar, Catchoom Technologies S.L., Gamar Ltd., Google LLC, Infinity Augmented Reality Ltd., Microsoft Corporation, Niantic, Inc., Nintendo Co. Ltd., Qualcomm, Inc., Sony Corporation, Total Immersion, VividWorks Ltd., Wikitude GmbH and Zappar Ltd. etc.
USER PERSONAS
Anupama Sen
Sheetal Daga
Akash Sharma
Shreejith Raman
TARGET GROUP
In a world of numbers and graphs stating the stats, how can we visualise data to help us comprehend, and in turn be impacted by the information better. What if there was a way to view our immediate surroundings, our real world, superimposed with a screen of pollutants to help us know better about different types of pollution and its ill effects. Would we make better choices if we’re better aware?
CONCEPT
IDEATION
NARRATIVE
Pacha is a slimy green alien who got left behind on earth, while the rest of his community left back to their planet after seeing the pitiful environmental conditions on earth. Pacha needs to convince his people to make a journey back and get him, but he can only do so if they are convinced that the conditions on earth is getting better. World of choices is an attempt by Pacha to bring awareness among the earthlings to take care of their environment, and in turn to facilitate his return to his home planet.
WE MUST SAVE OUR PLANET TO HELP PACHA RETURN TO HIS
EXPLORATORY SKETCHES
FEATURES
World of choices tries to educate the user about the various types of pollutants around them, starting with 4 namely, Air, water, noise and energy in the prototype. Each type of pollution has a different mode of gamification for the user.
MODES
AIR
Spheres of dust/pollutant particles
WATER
Plastic waste, Oil spills, endangered marine life
SOUND
Sound decibels represented by virtual longitudinal waves varying in size and motion relative to the intensity of sound.
ENERGY
Virtual orbs surrounding the appliance
USER SCENARIO
Roy is about to leave to his friend's house in his car which is close by in his locality. During the wait up before leaving, he whiles away time on a less attention and focus consuming game- world of choices.
On choosing the pop it game under air pollution, the pollutant particles as virtual simulations appear on Roy's phone screen. Roy then uses his fingers to pop the pollutant particles and enjoys this activity.
Post this Interaction, Roy feels accomplished as he has cleared up the pollutants in that surrounding. The real time data pops up, alarming the user with the actual quantifiable pollutants present in his surroundings.
Roy decides to ride his bicycle to go over to his friend's place, in an attempt to avoid further contributing to the pollutant particles in his surroundings.
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
SPLASH SCREEN
LANDING
AIR
WATER
NOISE
ENERGY
CHOOSE MODE
CHOOSE MODE
CHOOSE MODE
CHOOSE MODE
SIGN UP
LOGIN
PLAY
RESULTS
PLAY
RESULTS
PLAY
RESULTS
PLAY
RESULTS
ACCOUNT
SCORE BOARD
COMMUNITY
SHARE
LOG OUT
*Narrative
ERGONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS
Virtual and augmented reality allow viewers to relinquish themselves from the constraints of physical screens by replacing them with more flexible digital ones. Users are offered the ability to easily position their digital interfaces as desired. The interface may exist at any given location in the user’s scene and they have less incentivization to slouch or hunch over. They also don’t need to put themselves in uncomfortable positions because they can position AR screens at infinitely customizable heights, angles and distances.
The game uses gesture interaction based on finger tracking in front of the phone’s camera. Finger-based interaction with virtual objects in midair is the mode of interaction.
Using markers attached to the fingers, it evaluates canonical interactions such as translating, scaling, and rotating virtual objects in a mobile AR setting.
TECHNOLOGY:
HOW IT WORKS
SOFTWARE
1. Augmented reality (AR) is a type of technology that works by superimposing a computer-generated image on a given user's view of their real, geographic environment, which provides a composite view.
2. Unreal Engine | Blender
To help create the massive multiplayer online game (MMO) world that builds off real-world maps.
3. Google map API Real-World Games | Google Maps Platform
This API would be gps based world creation sdk that allows developers to build immersive games with Google Maps data in Unity, the most popular mobile gaming platform.
HARDWARE
1.Smart phone- Handheld
2.Go pro- to record the space in which AR simulations will take place
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
Virtual assets developed on Blender
SIMULATION 1: AIR POLLUTION
SIMULATION 2: WATER POLLUTION
WORLD OF CHOICES
Branding
Pacha, the slimy green alien is the mascot of the game, who keeps pointing out numbers and facts to the user and mind you, his eyes are always watching. Graphics of the alien pointing and watching the player of the game have been used throughout in a playful manner.
You have a choice, would you choose differently if you knew better?
WORLD OF CHOICES
Application Prototype