Problem

JustLight was invited to showcase their product Sunflower at the CES tech show, however, they did not have enough salesmen to interact with thousands of potential customers who were either participating in person or virtually.

Research and Insights

Before diving into design, I conducted several interviews with JustLight employees who had attended multiple tradeshows before to understand the obstacles they encountered during a typical trade show. The overall experience was positive as many customers expressed interest in the company's product. However, it was difficult for the employees to attend to every customer's need. Big tradeshows like CES usually have thousands of customers visiting the booth daily. Sometimes there would even be a huge line waiting to talk to the employees at the booth. Toward the end of each interview, I asked the same question to end our conversations: "If you had a magic wand to make your tradeshow experience better, what would you like to change?" 90% of the employees I talked to answered that having more agents from JustLight or a better way to showcase Sunflower would significantly improve their tradeshow experiences. The interviewees also believe that the potential customers attending the tradeshow would appreciate learning more about the products and company while waiting to interact with the JustLight employees.

Persona and User Journey

JustLight's target users are wellness-focused millennials who may suffer mind-body imbalance and nagging physical ailments. By analyzing the company's documents and interviewing internal stakeholders who interact with customers daily, I learned that JustLight's target users seek an effective way to reduce stress and pain while maintaining an active lifestyle. They use social media such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook to learn about new products and companies. They care about a brand's relatability, authenticity, personality, and creativity as much as its products' effectiveness and convenience. Many attendees of CES have similar traits with one difference - they are obsessed with cutting-edge technologies such as AR/VR. With this persona in mind, I created a user journey to see where we could seamlessly integrate an AR experience that not only informs them about the features of the Sunflower device but also lead them to the company's social media page.

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Challenge Statement

How might we help young tech lovers attending CES virtually or physically to understand our mission and product as quickly and holistically as possible and encourage them to become an ambassador for JustLight?

Ideation

I worked closely with the creative director to explore possible ways of effectively conveying JustLight's mission and products to JustLight's potential customers. We realized that traditional marketing materials such as brochures, business cards, and even physical company swags would not be enough to convert potential customers into ambassadors who would advocate JustLight's mission on social media and purchase Sunflower. In addition, according to JustLight's social media statistics, more than 60% of their customers are active Instagram and Facebook users. Therefore, we decided to be adventurous and explore an AR solution discoverable on Instagram and Facebook. As the only person with in-depth AR/VR experience in the company, I became responsible for all stages of AR design, including conception, development, and shipping. During my ideation process, I went beyond just showcasing JustLight's product - I wanted to find a solution that increases customer engagement online and in person. The graph below includes some rough sketches I did to convey my initial ideas to the people I interviewed earlier. After a series of discussions, the team and I realized that an AR product display of the Sunflower device appears to be the best solution with long-term benefits to the company's marketing strategy.

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Diving deep into interaction design...

Since the AR experience will be built in SparkAR and displayed on Instagram, I studied the software's capabilities and the user interactions on the platform before prototyping. According to my secondary research, most users might not be familiar with AR experiences, therefore, it is crucial to include instructions for every stage of the process. I also explored every possible scenario where users might diverge from my design intent and restructured the information hierarchy based on user feedback I collected from my colleagues.

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Creation Process

The 3D model provided by JustLight was way too big for SparkAR, so I had to reproduce the Sunflower model in Blender with only a few reference pictures. One of the biggest challenges during the development process was simulating light. SparkAR does not support any glow effect rendered in Blender so I had to find ways to work around it. In the end, I was able to create light beams with an array of thin planes.

Playtest and execution

I asked JustLIght's employees to playtest the AR filter before publishing it on Instagram. They were all amazed at how accurate the model looked compared to the actual device and the user experience was very intuitive and easy to use. Since I was not able to attend the tradeshow held in Las Vegas, my colleagues told me about their interactions with potential customers and that the AR experience was a great tool to display products when they were waiting for a one-on-one Sunflower demo. The creative director later told me that the statistics collected on the SparkAR platform also proved that AR experiences with proper user interactions had a positive impact on the brand's marketing strategy and they would love to continue to explore this technology in the future.

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Main Takeaway

The augmented reality experience allows JustLight to showcase its product at full scale to more potential customers. However, most users are still limited by the known touch screen paradigm, so the experience requires 2D instructions at every stage of the experience so users learn to walk around the product and get a far better feel for form, proportion, and relationship to the environment.

If I had more time...

Most of my time was devoted to figuring out the user interaction for this AR experience, however, I didn't have enough time to implement all the instructions I designed. If I could do this again, I would like to test the AR filter with potential customers in person. I also wish to collaborate with other AR developers and designers to bounce ideas off each other.