We decided to overhaul the system model of the original design. After brainstorming and testing different storyboard concepts with 6 users, we came up with two different directions to take Xplore:

1. Follow Along Method. User discovers points of interests, and "follows along" instructions from app.
2. Quest Method. User discovers "quests", and navigates place to place to complete portions of the quest.

The final two storyboards.

Interviews with 6 users of AR apps gave us an understanding of where to take the direction of PolyXpress and what previous experiences with AR apps were like.

• Users preferred the quest based interaction model.
• Augmented reality apps can seem "gimmicky" depending on what use case they were trying to meet.

We held a participatory design workshop with 5 participants over a 40 minute time period. The workshop had two activities:

1. T/F Scenarios. Participants were given 8 scenarios to either agree or disagree with, and provide notes on.
2. Paper Prototyping. Participants were asked to create a mock-up of a scenario using pre-printed and cut-out components.

Key Findings from Workshop

• Social features should be limited to rating stories and following creators.
• Rather than a linear path for story-telling, a non-sequential path where the user can "retrace their steps" as they navigate through a story.
• Visual cues for directions to stories are important for users.
• There are security and safety concerns with the app. Who is able to create a story, and can any type of story be created? Can anyone have an account?

Beginning with low-fidelity prototypes, I translated the user flow map to Figma frames. After creating the low-fidelity prototype, I wrote a user testing script and our team conducted 6 users tests for the following tasks: 1) Sign up for a new Account, 2) Navigate to the closest story to you, 3) View the story, 4) Give the story a 3 star rating, 5) Create a story.

For user tests, we measured two metrics: time to completion and success rate. With 6 participants, we had a 97.2% success rate for completion of tasks out of 8 tasks with 54 subtasks (happy path).

Some areas of improvement that were commented on:

1. Visual Design. Although this was a low-fidelity prototype, participants expressed that several components (like buttons) could be made more colorful and larger.
2. Reviewing Chapters. Having to give a rating to each "chapter" in a "story" seemed like overkill. Might benefit to having users go through the whole story, then review it rather than each individual chapter.
3. Creating a Story. Should explore different ways to choose a location to create a story. Users were confused on dragging and dropping locations.

After two rounds of iterating at varying levels of fidelity, we reached saturation on user testing results. I went into Framer to create the final prototype – working on micro-interactions / animations, and prototyping sound.

Final Design Solutions

• Stories and Chapters. Each "quest" is a story, containing multiple chapters at different locations. Chapters can be experienced non-sequentially, or saved for later viewing.
• Map and List View. To discover stories, users can click on location markers (indicating stories) nearby them on the map, or by searching nearby stories in using the search bar. After choosing a chapter from the story, the Map interface navigates the user to that chapter.
• Viewing Stories. When nearby a location marker, the navigation card changes to prompt the user to open up their camera. Users then use the camera to view AR objects, text, or sound, designed by the creator. After completing a story, users can rate & review the story as a whole.
• Creating Stories. Story creation is broken up into different sections (each section is a different type of rich media). For AR objects, users have access to a "bank" of premade AR objects made in Unity.