We took a broad look at the visions and goals of the company as well as what the client's goals were for the prototype. We also examined customer pain points.
With the clients, I examined opportunities and gaps in their service spectrum: in-store, online and mobile. Then I mapped where augmented reality might create opportunities and bridge gaps.
Our team was able to align with the client on the needs of the user and understand how their service spectrum works across in-store, online, and mobile.
I researched various AR precedents, including Lowe's, Amazon, and Ikea. These precedents used AR to view products in the user's space or perform measurements from point A to B.
I went to our client's various store locations across Toronto and performed a short field study. I spent time inside asking employees questions and observing customer interactions.
We created journey maps that helped us find pain points along the user journey that could be addressed. The journey maps also included concerns the clients had brought up in the workshop.
The team began by individually sketching up some ways AR could solve the client and customer pain points we found.
1. A dynamic AR visualization of an appliance. It would populate the intended space showing dimensions and measurements. It would also have open and closing animations to demonstrate how it would function in the user's space.
2. AR that could measure a user's space, and then overlay flooring or paint over the measured space. The app would then tell the user how much of that product the user would need to fill the measured space and direct them to the product page.
After some deliberation, the team chose the second measurement/overlay idea. This idea was more in line with what the company wanted out of their prototype, as opposed to the appliance visualization idea.
After our sketches, I started building wireframes in Figma. Printing them out and placing them on the wall helped us find potential problems with the flow.
Creating user flows helped us get a better sense of what functionality would be required in the product. We created our user flows after finding gaps in the flow of our wireframes.
One of my teammates made a visualization of the AR component using Adobe Aero. Aero was a helpful tool because we could demonstrate the core functionality of the app without using a more complex software like Unity.
