Ark Children's AR Learning App
Digital Designer/Developer
My Roles
Producer
Production Designer
Location Manager
Post Production Supervisor
Marketing & Distribution
UX/UI Design
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ARk
Nature in Your Pocket
ARk intends to inspire future generations, creating a global network of tuned in explorers, illuminated and willing to protect the wonders of the natural world.
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One of the most powerful ways we can create an impact in conservation is to inspire new generations in the beauty and importance of nature. In our modern world, many children and even adults have not the opportunity to experience our natural world. If we want to save our planet it is of the utmost importance that we aim at educating everyone about the importance of conservation and inspiring engagement in the real world. And now with the use of immersive technology and some clever design we can.
ARk app the amazing animal tracker app adds an extra dimension to e-learning through the use of augmented reality gaming. Using the fable of Noah’s ark as a vehicle for a scavenger hunt, ARk gets kids out of the house, exercising and collecting virtual animal cards ‘two by two’. Once the cards are collected and stored in your ark there are lots of fun facts and media about the animals, nature, and ecology to turn to time and time again. Alternatively, you can trade your cards on the in-app trading platform with a global community.
Overview
My Design Process
Tools
My Role
Project Statistics
Testing
UX Designer:
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User Research
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User Testing
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Analytical Data Reviews
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Wireframing
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Information Architecture
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Prototyping
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Preference Testing
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UI Design
Immersive Technology Research
Project Length 10 months:
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3 months, User Research
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2 months, Surveys & Retesting
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5 months, Iterated Wireframing/Prototyping
Project Status:
Design ongoing. Seeking Development Funding with working Prototype.
Project Demographic: User Testing Group:
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Children 3 years+ 46
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Adults 62
Problem & Solution
Problem
The world is at the point of no return for the natural world. As a population, with 80% of us now living in cities and urban areas we have lost contact and respect for our natural world, especially our children, most of whom due to location and socio-economic factors have and will never have the opportunity to see wild animals. Our children require a simple, exciting, and accessible way to learn about and enjoy wildlife in order to educate and strengthen the link and passion in our natural world.
Hypothesis
I believe that building this app with its 'learning through gaming' style and added immersive technology will enable children all over the world to get close to nature, learn and reconnect with the natural world inciting a passion 'in some' for conservation. It also will enable children to play with physicality, as opposed to sedientary 'modern world' play. Helping reduce health problems from a young age.
Solution
ARk offers five integral features created for learning and playing.
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ARk Hunt: Track down interactive AR animal cards and play quizzes and puzzles.
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My ARk: Save animal cards in your virtual ARk, interact in Augmented Reality, learn facts, watch videos and animation, and even feed them.
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MARket: Trade your cards with a global ARk community.
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ARk Hunt Creator: Build your own hunts for parties and group fun.
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ARk Store: Purchase in-app items, learning materials, gifts, and merchandise to continue your learning journey.
Ark is presented as a native app compatible with IOS and android portable devices. Yet it's ultimate user interface will be virtual/AR eyewear. Presented in a visual game structure designed for a child demographic with intuitive controls and a little premeditated friction for instinctual interaction.
To widen the demographic ARk has been designed with accessibility in mind, providing settings for both motor function and visual disabilities.
ARk will be partnered with stakeholders like WWF and Nat Geo and Blue Planet to offer a comprehensive fact base for educational and learning materials.
Competitive Analysis
There are several AR apps on the market involving treasure hunting. They range from basic navigation games to more complex solving puzzles. Obviously, one major competitor, Pokemon Go, stands out above all others, however, Pokemon is pure gaming for fans of that niche. There are four types of learning Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing & Kinaesthetic - learning by doing. I aim to build a game app that includes all four types of learning rolled into one tidy, accessible package with the use of AR, a kick-ass concept, and timely on-trend subject matter, 'extinction of our natural world'.
ARk a wildlife learning app for ages 3+ that will get you up on your feet and saving the world.
Aircoins
Actionbound
Gamar
Actionbound offers a platform for creating, sharing, and playing digital treasure hunts using Augmented Reality. Treasure hunts or ‘Bounds’, as they call them can be created anywhere which has access to GPS mapping enabling the app to be played virtually anywhere on Earth.
Aircoins is a cross-platform app used for collecting Crypto-Currency in AR/VR format, primarily targeted at a commercial demographic for marketing campaigns. Users can see and interact with virtual objects in the real world, collecting or dropping coins from their crypto wallet. Possibilities of this platform are varied and as yet unexplored to full capacity.
Gamar platform was first launched for museums and art galleries Since launch they have grown and moved into a wider consumer game stream creating family-focussed games using immersive technologies.
S W O T
User Research
I'd want a learning game to help my child with homework that is part of their syllabus and that's also safe online for her to play without my supervision.
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Interviews & Affinity Mapping
ARk needs to appeal to two demographics, Children 3 years+ and adults who are parents, guardians, or teachers therefore creating two user groups. I had to get an appropriate perspective from each group and from this point onwards set up a parallel testing and feedback stream for them. Interview questions were all based around Gaming with subcategories of questions; Technology, Family Time, Safety & Security, and Learning respectively. All categories were interlinked by one final, central question; "How would you want to explore the natural world in a game format".
I'd want a fun interactive game that I could share with my kids, easily, at any time, and was a journey, story kind of thing.
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Adults 16+
Children 3+
Diagram 1.
I'd like a game that I could share with my friends on the computer with animals as pets that we can look after and swap.
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I carried out an affinity mapping exercise that would give me a high, medium, and low priority for user requirements. I assigned colored stickies to each interview candidate and prioritized my data findings under the categories above in diagram 1. I discerned the key goals for my personas and targets for my design to adhere to.
Personas
From my affinity mapping, I have taken forward a primary and secondary persona from each stream of research data (Children and Adults) enabling extra provision within the app for demographics concerned.
Primary Personas
From my affinity mapping, I have taken forward a primary and secondary persona from each demographic stream of my research data (Children and Adults). This will allow for wider testing and feedback, enabling me to find a balance in design between the two vastly different demographics.
Fran, 30, Work from home mum with own business
Goals
To find an App for her children that teaches about the environment and nature with takeaway offline aspects
Frustrations
Fran hasn’t got a lot of time nor patience to learn complicated apps. She expects to click and play, not be bogged down with long-winded controls and stories.
I have a busy family and leisure life which is great I hate being idle and if it gets too much I can always escape to my studio and lose myself in creativity.
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Grayson, 7, Schoolboy, rugby player, and avid gamer
Goals
He loves physical activity, especially competitive sports, games and puzzles. He’d like an app that is shared with friends and an online community.
Frustrations
He doesn’t like Apps that give you the first game and then make you pay for all other access or lives in the game.
I like where I live as there are lots of open spaces but not much to do unless you travel into the nearby city.
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Secondary Personas
Omar, 40, Sound Engineer
Goals
He likes throwing parties for all occasions, Christmas, birthdays, Easter, Halloween, etc. and invite his kids' friends round to enjoy therefore making home life extra fun.
Frustrations
Omar is angered by how easy it is for his children to mistakenly use in-App purchasing. He hates the lack of clarity within Apps.
I have the luxury of working for myself, therefore I have time to look after my family and entertain our children and their friends.
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Mika, 12, Schoolgirl with a passion for creative arts and dogs.
Goals
I want to be able to design games to share with my friends.
Frustrations
She doesn’t like adverts or popup’s in games that want you to watch or buy to advance to the next level. It would be great if there were just open-ended free play games out there.
I like playing on my laptop but my sisters always distract me, especially when I’m Vlogging!
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Information Architecture
Initial Site Structure Sketch
Below shows a simplified overview of ARk. After the onboarding process, there are five main features of the app as highlighted below. From this point onwards I explore four of the features of ARk, My ARk, MARket, ARk Hunt & ARk Hunt Creator also some sub-features. I will show user flows, full sitemap, and design iteration of wireframes for the main screens of the features.
User Flows
My user flows take into account goals highlighted by my personas in respect of game features. The flows show how a user would access each feature from login into gameplay.
Click image to see more User Flows
Sitemap
Once I was happy with my user flows I created initial sitemaps for each of the five features of my game After each separate iteration I returned to these sitemaps and updated them.
Wireframing
Onboarding
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
This onboarding offers a quick view at the features available in ARk.
However, I feel that it is lacking in conceptual interaction, a theme that drives the game. Therefore interactive step-by-step tutorials, the “glowing choice,” and early stage Win-States will be designed as an accompaniment to reinforce development, accomplishment and provide 'Epic Meaning' & 'Calling' into the process of my onboarding experience.
To improve this onboarding I will look at designing 5 second animations per feature.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Feature 1.1 My ARk
This is the landing page of the 'My ARk' feature, with easy to understand category buttons and an assistive onboarding tab.
To offer a wide variety of animals I found that this was the most popular way to categorize.
A Search bar input field and clear and constant on-screen main navigation.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Feature 1.2 Animal Card Stats
Having Chosen an animal card you can 'virtually' flip it over and you will receive comprehensive statistics. Ordered with a sidebar menu and pagination with an animated finger swipe for native touchscreen. Each page is also vertically scrollable enabling a wealth of information.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Feature 2.1 MARket, Current Trading
The MARket feature has three sub-sections, Your Current Trading, Public MARket, and the rate card as reference. Here, in the Current Trading, you can see up-to-date responses from the ARk community with offers and likes and are able to browse these. You are only allowed to trade three animals at any one time.
Animals that you have successfully traded are placed in your "My ARk" ready for deployment, you then have 30 days to find and collect.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Feature 3.1 ARk Hunt
The hunting feature offers three kinds of challenges, a straightforward animal search, and applied quiz, and a physical or mental puzzle.
After iterating I have decided to continue with the card theme. when you tap a pin you can see details of the type of challenge that is required, the valuation of the animal, and the extinction type however the exact name and type of animal is still a surprise. this is in order to add to the gamification value.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Feature 4 ARk Hunt Creator
I designed a separate sidebar menu for the game creator so that it is easier to navigate when placing your pins.
Each map pin you place will let you search for the postcode of location as well as then opening a map for a visual placement within a 2m tolerance.
Each placement has then data entry fields to leave instructions, direction hints, clues, and also settings.
After iteration especially after looking at accessibility factors for visual impairment, the darker colour theme has a more legible impact.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Sub Feature: Feed Shed
After iteration, the Feed Shed feature has been cleaned up to make it more legible for accessibility issues, visual and motor impairment.
The Feed Shed allows you to purchase any type of feed for your animals to use in AR mode however you have to choose the correct feed otherwise the animal will refuse it and it will be wasted. This will hopefully encourage the user to learn and also monetizes the app a little further.
The first image is the latest iteration, Scroll for previous wireframes
Sub Feature: Coin Wallet
The Coin Wallet has been iterated for legibility and accessibility but also for a visual game feel. The basis of inspiration was arcade games from the 1980s with big bold and simple graphics.
As well as topping up your Wallet I have included a sub-feature of a Wallet history so that there is transparency in regards to in-app game spending. A frustration that I had picked up from my research and user testing.
Overview of Iterated Wireframes
UI Style Guide
UI Design Concept
My Concept for the UI Design was to use colours, shapes, and icons that were visual, audible, and emotive of the natural environment. Colours, both primary and secondary are sampled from elements I found in my natural environment. In addition, I have used the imagery of foliage, for backgrounds to create a more immersive experience, for visual clarity I have transformed these into vector illustrations. I have rounded and softened shapes used for buttons, boxes, and icons to create harmony in the design.
Colour Theme
Style Guide
Prototype
Working Prototype Built in XD
The ARk app is still in the iterative design phase with further user testing of the prototype being carried out. In parallel, I am searching for appropriate partners to invest in ARk. Current conversations with gaming companies and also wildlife and environmental organizations are underway and further research into the current AR wildlife app market is being carried out.
ARk
Nature in Your Pocket
ARk fills the gap in learning about extinction. An AR scavenger hunting and virtual zoo game rolled into one where players can trade animals within a global community whilst learning about species past and present, ecology, and the imminent threat of extinction to our natural world.
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