Apr 13

Apr 13 MRsive

“MRsive” is a mobile AR activated solution that supports indoor wayfinding and visitor engagement at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The AGO visitor intuitively follows virtual cues anchored in 3D in the physical space to find exhibits. MRsive augments the art with extra information through multisensory visual, auditory and haptic interactions.

This is a two-year graduate thesis project, a partial requirement to complete the Master's in Digital Futures at OCAD University.

PROBLEM :

Although the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) uses printed methods and signs to support indoor navigation and visitor engagement, many visitors commonly get lost and experience frustration when trying to find particular exhibitions.
’MRsive’ explores how might we enhance indoor wayfinding and navigation in complex indoor environments and increase the visitor engagement with potential points of interest.

TOOLS USED:

Adobe XD
Adobe Illustrator
Unity 3D Engine
C#
Placenote SDK
Vuforia SDK
Apple Xcode

PROCESS :

1. RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

During a research internship at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), I had access to observe and shadow some museum visitors. I first used an affinity map to group similar observations together to extract interesting patterns.

2. EMPATHIZE

I defined the target audience: first-time visitors and tourists struggled the most so I created 4 UX personas and conducted in-depth interviews with 36 visitors to define their pain points when visiting the AGO.

3. CREATE

I outlined the information architecture below then I proposed the system architecture to use it as a back bone to my prototypes and make sure the UX userflow stays simple and seamless.

> Information Architecture:

> System Architecture:

> Paper Protoype:

> UI library / Icons / Illustrations / Brand / Colors / Themes:

> UX Userflow

4. TEST / VALIDATE

I recruited 12 AGO visitors and conducted in-person usability testing to see how they interacted with my prototype. The test was followed by an in-depth one on one interview to gather useful insights and feedback. The feedback led to several recommendations to solve the user problems going through given tasks:

Allow users to customize their own journey.
Allow users to interact with other points of interests in the surrounding view.
Add how-it-works page to teach users how to use the application.
Allow users to click to see detailed information about exhibits.

Below is a visualization how the current prototype performed in comparison to the usage of conventional paper based wayfinding aids:

5. DEVELOP

I used Unity 3D Engine and C# to export the project to Xcode and finally deploy it on an iPhone X device. Below are the screens of the final prototype and a video demo of its functionality.

Next Steps would be to conduct more in depth user testing to perfect the user experience and give the interface its final look.

PUBLICATION :

Click the button below to download the full thesis pdf document:

Read Thesis Document

I published this thesis in the form of a poster submission to the HCII 2019 conference in Orlando, USA on July 2019, and here is the citation:

Al Rabbaa J., Morris A., Somanath S. (2019) MRsive: An Augmented Reality Tool for Enhancing Wayfinding and Engagement with Art in Museums. In: Stephanidis C. (eds) HCI International 2019 - Posters. HCII 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1034. Springer, Cham

Click the button below to go to the publication page on the Springer website:

HCII 2019 Publication