PlayAR

PLAYAR is an augmented reality concept designed to help people with low vision enjoy physical recreational experiences.

TYPE
Class Project

MY ROLE
UX Researcher
Interaction & Visual Designer
Prototyper

OUTPUTS
AR Smart Glass Concept Design
Augmented Reality UI

TEAM
Amy Asadi
Shiva Ghasemi
Matthew Ryson 

METHODS
Inclusive Design
Participatory Design
Usability Testing

TIME
Two Months 

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 3.3 million Americans over the age of 40 have low vision.  Our contextual interviews with participants who have low vision revealed the limited access they have to fully enjoying recreational experiences such as physical games or sports. This is due to the limited assistive technologies designed to prioritize play and wellness.

Limited access to physical recreation can increase feelings of isolation, exclusion, and stress.  Our team decided to focus on creating inclusive access to joy - a part of life everyone deserves to experience.

MY CONTRIBUTIONS

For this project, I worked with a team to conceptualize this product from participatory design research & ideation through rapid prototyping.

Problem Discovery with Contextual Inquiry

Our exploration of how to make recreational activities inclusive for people with low vision began with contextual interviews to identify the problem space. 

To prepare, we listed our assumptions about potential opportunity areas for people with low vision. This included experiencing vulnerability in high crime areas, running into a lack of accessible public spaces, and experience restrictive work or educational experiences.

After qualitative coding, I found our assumptions were wrong. Our participant felt his needs were met in areas of safety, work, education. What he wanted was to enhance his life by having more inclusive experiences with games and recreation.

For example, our participant stated that he cannot fully participate in indoor boxing because he is unable to visually note his opponents’ moves quickly enough in close proximity without receiving more punches than necessary.

Blue Sky Divergence

Our team did iterative sessions of wild idea brainstorming and participatory design research that proved we had many failed ideas...

+ a few promising ones.

Inclusive Design GIF designed by Microsoft. 

BLUE SKY IDEATION BEFORE OUR CO-DESIGNING

High Contrast Projections - Is it Plausible?

Based on one of my sketches, I was eager to discuss if a device placed in a caged boxing helmet that projects a high contrast overlay of one’s surroundings could enhance our participants ability to decipher his boxing opponent’s moves.

I created the AR simulation in Adobe Premiere of an AR simulation as a cultural probe to spark discussion around the idea.

CULTURAL PROBE AR SIMULATION I CREATED TO DEMONSTRATE HIGH CONTRAST ENHANCMENTS ONTO A BOXING OPPONENT.  

Our participant was intrigued by this idea but felt the white on black contrast would not help him when seconds are at stake. This is due to the overlapping of white objects, making it difficult to distinguish gloves from hair. 

The simulation did spark possibilities, however. Through co-design, our participant and I linked the idea to chess. He wanted to explore how AR overlay projections could help him discern chess pieces. Together we prioritized key features to support a variety of low vision experiences.

01

A way to enhance edges for clearer contrast

To support visual acuity and varying interpretations of luminance

02

A way to customize colors of objects

To support diverse color perception needs

03

A way to zoom in or use audio feedback for further support of object recognition

To support differentiating fields of view, visual acuity, and luminance perception all together

The Considerations

Lower Visual Acuity
Impacts the clarity of visual
perception

Perceptual Area
Impacts what can be seen in one's field of view

Contrast and Luminance
Impacts the interpretation of varying light contrasts

Color Perception
Impacts the ability to see a full spectrum of colors

Storyboarding & Rapid Protoyping a Smart Glass Wearable

Our team turned back to iterative sketching to flesh out solutions with our noted key features. 

We voted on creating a Smartglass wearable that incorporated our key features. I lead a storyboarding session to help us envision this possibility in its entirety. Afterward, I created a hi-fi- storyboard that reduced the experience to a simplier flow.

We then began rapid prototyping for more hands-on testing.

DESIGN CONCEPT I CREATED OF AN AR SMART GLASS DEVICE  

RAPID PROTOTYPE I CREATED OF THE FIRST PERSON VIEW USING THE SMART GLASS - UNMUTE TO ENABLE SOUND

Is Scannability Possible?

Noting that audio feedback and magnification limits the ability to scan, I felt inclined to determine other ways to make physical chess pieces scannable.

I decided to take a quick pivot and prototype an additional feature that included creating a customizable way to identify the different chess pieces by assigning them specific colors and patterns.

The assumption was that these tailored patterns could serve as a way to easily recognize pieces in one scan.

RAPID PROTOTYPE MY TEAMMATE AND I CREATED SHOWING COLOR ASSIGNMENTS IN ACTION WITHIN AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE. IT INCLUDES A REFERENCE SCREEN TO HELP WITH RECALL. 

What worked with our rapid prototypes was enabling scannability. With a game like chess, it's important to be able to plan 3 to 8 steps ahead which requires constant scanning of the board at all times. 

Having a way to simplify the visual presentation of physical chess pieces through a new way to classify them was favorable for our co-design participant. They especially liked having a corresponding reference screen to lessen the need for memory recall.

Because customization is essential, an important next step would be to create a customizable classification system. One issue we found is that the colored diamonds may not be suitable for other visual experiences such as those with color blindness. 

After our class had finished, I returned to  the board and created a storyboard that shares what worked through our research and rapid prototypes. I then began exploring further solutions for an AR customization experience and organized the interactions with wireflows.

A work in progress, these flows show my thought process as I work through the interactions before my next round of testing.

STORYBOARD I CREATED THAT SHARES THE HIGH-LEVEL HAPPY PATH DETERMINED THROUGH TESTING  

RETURNING TO THE BOARD THROUGH SKETCHING

WIREFLOWS OF AR CUSTOMIZATION EXPERIENCE - IN PROGRESS

Reflections

The fanciest solution is not always the best. 

It’s sometimes exciting, especially as a new designer, to want to design for the latest, most cutting edge technology. It’s great to explore these possibilities, but it's also important to consider the price tag. A solutions is not a good one if it will not be accessible to the majority of target users. While we explored an AR experience through a smart glass device, it may be better to see what is possible through a mobile application as this solution will be the most monetarily accessible.

Bringing users into the design process lessens bias.

Co-designing has been one of my favorite research activities that I practiced. I learned that bringing users into the design process and designing together is beneficial, especially to lessen the presence of design bias thinking. It was interesting to see how many times myself and my teammates were wrong about our assumptions and how important it is to test and test early or better yet, design early with users.

There's always a good time for coffee talk. ☕️ 

I am currently seeking full-time or contract opportunities. 

Feel free to reach out to say hello: amy.n.asadi@gmail.com
Or connect on: Linkedin. 

© 2022 Amy Asadi