JournalAR:
Augmented Reality app
An immersive and experiential augmented reality app that improves on the process of journaling. This solution involves recording memories and utilising AR world space to create an environment where users can record and relive memories when returning to the location days, weeks or even months later. This project acted originally as the final assignment for my degree but is now a personal project which allows me to explore the potential of AR.
Project details
Role: Design and Developer
Length: 1 Year
Key skills: Unity (C#), Maya(modelling), AR Foundation, Xcode, User Testing
Background
With each step forward that technology, specifically social media apps, take towards creating more immersive and interactive experiences they increase the user’s screen times and mediate the way in which many outwardly live their lives. One of the main problems explored in this project was how to re-engage people back with their immediate environments and how to experience life more symbiotically with the technologies they use. The idea of journaling has been around since recorded history began and in some ways, the recent social media has created a new warped version of this age-old practice. The objective for this project was to develop an application where the user can seamlessly add a memory in digital form whilst staying engaged with the world around them. Rather than focusing on creating a fully polished consumer-ready app, I created an environment in which I could test my thesis.
Research
The research was split into two main sections, the first being an investigation of the importance of journaling and the second being an analysis of alternative solutions. The research into the importance of journaling was conducted as a literature review and was split into 3 sub-areas, ‘History of Journals’, ‘Therapeutic and Creative journals’, ‘Travel Journaling’. The second section looked at some of the solutions currently available and weighed up the pros and cons of these solutions, this included two apps (“Journey” & “Day One”) and paper diary-based journaling.
Functional requirements
Create mode
View Mode
Place message
Draw AR picture
Save entry to a location
Clear all data
Design
The design process followed was the double diamond approach (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver) and at each stage, the design was refined and improved upon. User journeys, screen flows and paper prototypes were all used to make sure the best possible experience was mapped out by the time the hi-fi wireframes were produced.
Implementation
The development stage was built in four different packages which enabled the app to be broken down into more bite-sized chunks. These four packages are the following;
Action package
This package creates and manages the text and draw objects. The package is organised in such a way to make it easy to add new AR components such as audio or Memoji. The objects are then linked on to the location and Save System packages.
Save System package
This package oversees the saving of the objects to the system. Then once the user is close to an old entry, it would recall the memory from the system and display it for the user.
View package
This package serves as the user interface for the app and holds all the code to control it. It was the working side of the app that the user could see laid on top of the AR world.
Location package
This package calculates and sets a location for text and draw objects placed in world space. The algorithm for the geo-locating is based on longitude, latitude and altitude.
Application preview
Here are some previews of the early stages of app testing. This gives you an understanding of what the experience would be like for the user.
Future Work
After user testing, a list of future work was created and assigned priority based on the feedback from the user. While in the testing stages, many users were also interviewed about their journaling habits and this information would help build a greater understanding of the user. Here is a table highlighting the next steps.
Download the full project report here.
