TIP OFF
Can Augmented Reality enhance a physical experience?
Client
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Researcher
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Experience Designer
Tip Off
Roles
Project
Utah Jazz
Tools
Deliverables
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User Research
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Augmented Interactions
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Physical/Print Prototype
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Budget/Proposal
THE CHALLENGE
Use AR to create a more engaging experience for fans when flipping through the game-day pamphlets.
Overview
Thousands of pamphlets are handed out at each Utah Jazz home game but rarely are they looked at for more than a few seconds before being tossed aside and litter the arena floor.
APPROACH
Create a more interactive and enjoyable experience for fans by integrating AR (augmented reality) into the game-day brochures.
RESEARCH
In order to keep responses as authentic as possible, interviewers were encouraged to avoid leading the interviewee in their responses. If the fan didn't bring suggest a solution that question was left blank. Although we interviewed over 200 people, we mostly dealt with groups, so that when one person spoke most of the group tended to agree.
So what did we learn from all this?
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Fans seemed to be most interested in getting more information about the players (stats, fun facts).
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The majority of fans do not have the Jazz app and even if they do have not yet explored it or know what they can do with it.
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Usually, only one person per family/ group had the app.
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Would be more willing to download it if it were advertised more
“It would be cool to create an emotional connection to the players, and have it be interactive.”
Season ticket holder
- Derrik S.
Customer Journey
I created a customer journey map for one of my personas (Daniel) as a means for me to help identify pain points located throughout his gameday experience.
Beyond tracking pain points, I was also able to pinpoint specific opportunities
where the game-day experience could potentially be enhanced.
Range of Emotion
IDEATION
The most requested features by fans:
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Player Stats, key matchups for the night, highlighted players
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Personal Information about the players
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Trivia Games, word-search puzzles
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Coupons
I quickly sketched out a few ideas of how I could incorporate the things people had asked for (during our research phase) through an augmented space.
The previous pamphlets offered the very same features fans were asking for... before they made budget cuts.
Utilizing augmented reality could provide fans access to all of the content they requested while still maintaining a lower budget for printing costs.
Test it yourself!
Download Zappar from your app store for free.
Aim your phone and scan the zapcode.
Sit back and watch the magic happen.
(Find and scan my zapcodes down below to see for yourself.)
HIGH FIDELITY
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Introduction (welcome the fans) (emotional connection)
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Key matchup of the night (stats)
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Sponsored Jazz quiz(Something entertaining)
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Snapchat filter(shareable) WOW Factor.
ZAPCODE INTERACTIONS
Scan Me
Perfecting the Flow
Because the user interface would be accessed virtually there would need to be a lot of testing and tweaking to make sure the interactions came across smoothly and naturally.
USER TESTING
"Oops, what just happened?"
Making the transition from a traditional smartphone interface to a virtual one was tricky, augmented interfaces are much more finicky in nature and became quite jarring at times for certain users.
The biggest issue I ran into was calculating the ideal distance a user needed to be from the page while scanning the codes in order to make them work. If the user was too close, or too far away the code wouldn't register.
I found that the distance from where the user scanned and the exact placement of the zap code played critical roles in how the interface would appear and how the user would be able to interact with it.
The answer seemed to lie in both the size of the zap code and in where it was located on the page.
The smaller the zapcodes were, the closer the user would try and to get in order to scan them, and vice versa. Because each zapcode is tied to an image, the larger the image is, the larger the zapcode needs to be. For example, because the image on the front page is the largest of the pamphlet, it also required the largest zapcode.
RETROSPECTIVE
SOMETIMES THE IDEA IS THERE, BUT THE TECHNOLOGY HASN'T QUITE CAUGHT UP YET.
I had the privilege of presenting my designs to the Utah Jazz marketing and mobile app team.
They were impressed with the idea and effort put forth into the project, however, ultimately they decided against pursuing the project. We both agreed that the software still leaves something to be desired in regards to the user interface and that some of the features were somewhat gimmicky in nature.
This is not to say that the research or idea behind this project isn't valid, but rather that AR is still a very new concept and in need of some fine-tuning and adjustments. This is why experiments such as this one are so crucial in pushing the technology forward.