UIUX Design, UX Research, AR Design Coral reef AR educational experience Appling emerging technologies, design thinking methods and art to coral bleaching problems
Conducted user research, prototype and Interface design
Impact
The project highlights a possible intervention to the coral bleaching problem using AR
Overview
About Coral Bleaching
Marine environments, especially coral reefs are under increasing pressure from human activities. Man-made damages could lead to coral bleaching, eventually the death of coral reefs. Coral bleaching has negative influences on environmental suitability, society and economy. Yet, beautiful coral reefs at aquariums belie the severe fact of coral bleaching so that generating a gap between public awareness and information on severe marine issues.
Problem
How to raise public awareness on severe marine issues in museums?
Goal
The project's objective is to question aquariums' roles in public awareness and educational significance through the use of augmented reality technology and interactive installations.
Design Preview
I. AR mobile experience
The immersive experience, REEF, aims to bring individuals into a vivid underwater journey supported by enormous sculptural coral reef artworks and the AR REEF app.
01 Exploration Audience can freely explore the underwater coral reef world through the REEF mobile AR experience.
02 ComminationTop left message icon shows collective comments left by audiences that give audiences a space for communication and sharing.
03 Screenshot and sharing Audience can use screen shoot button at the bottom to take images and videos for preserve special moments.
04 Learning while exploring All marine animals and coral reefs that have the circle icon are clickable. Clicking on these circle icon will open up a learning tab on the screen that display information about the specific marine species.
Complete AR Experience
I further used Unity to test effectiveness of clicking and showing information as an AR effect on a mobile phone.
II. Coral Reef Forest Installation
Viewers are welcomed to physically interact with coral reefs to directly observe the color change, which parallels to the severe coral bleaching.
Colorful coral reefs will turn white as individuals touch the coral reefs.
User Research
Research
Marine environments, especially coral reefs are under increasing pressure from human activities. Man-made damages could lead to coral bleaching, eventually the death of coral reefs. Coral bleaching has negative influences on environmental suitability, society and economy. Yet, beautiful coral reefs at aquariums belie the severe fact of coral bleaching so that generating a gap between public awareness and information on severe marine issues.
Research Findings
The diagram maps out the relationship between human, coral reefs and the ocean ecosystem, which helps to visualize the logic for further ideation process.
Problems
The survey further shows limited propagation of marine issues and limited understandings on how man-made damages lead to the coral bleaching.
01 Limited Awareness
02 Limited Public Engagements
03 Belied Facts
limited awareness for human causes on coral bleaching
limited public interactive experiences addressing marine issues
currently exhibited coral reefs in aquariums belie the severe fact of coral bleaching
Challenge
How can we raise people's public awareness on coral reef ecosystems and the coral bleaching problem? How can we protect coral reefs besides implementing volunteer programs or government policies?
Design Principles
I. Value Proposition
II. Design Features
To inform the design, I developed three design features about the identity of the project.
01 Educational
02 Interactive
03 Immersive
The AR experience inspires environmental actions
Individuals can learn the process of coral bleaching through physical interactions with the coral reef sculptures.
The multi-sensorial underwater journey allows individuals to see, touch and feel.
User Persona
Ideation
Thermochroic Interactive Experience
Inspired by the relationship between coral reefs and marine species from movies, I place human audience in the position of marine species to reflect on the human impact on coral reefs.
I found this thermochromic paint pigment, a special painting material that is heat sensitive, turns to white when temperature raise. The process of changing color metaphorizes human impact on coral bleaching.
Storyboard
User Journey
Besides the regular walking and explore experience in the museum, I expanded the user journey with the AR experience and a physical Interactions with the coral reef sculptures.
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Displayed coral reefs are from a list of 25 species of coral under the Endangered Species Act.
The size of coral reef are scaling up to encourage individuals to review their relationship with nature, rejecting anthropocentrism.
Users are free to touch coral reefs as they want. When users touch coral reefs, coral reefs turn white immediately.
Coral reefs will turn colorful again after a significant amount of time. The process mimics the actual long time it take for the coral reef ecosystem to recover.
Users can scan the QR code with their phone to active the AR experience.
Through AR, users can gain extra access to coral reef interactions. Coral reef fishes swim away as an area of coral reef turns white, suggesting the actual disappearance of coral reef fishes resulted from coral bleaching.
Audiences will learn about coral reefs from displayed information, but also be aware of human impact on coral bleaching through physical interaction with the coral reef (experiencing the process of coral bleaching when touch the coral reefs).
Prototype
AR mobile Experience
I used Blender to create the coral reef forest, and then prototype the Argument Reality effect. Some rendered images are rendered in Keyshot.
Thermochroic Coral Reef Sculptures
I chose the white clay as the medium of making corals to restore the whiteness of bleached corals.
Reflections
The project has focused on user research and AR prototyping. I practiced modeling and rendering in Blender to create AR prototypes. If I had more time, I could have collected more survey responses from more people and do few rounds of iterations and testing.
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