Designing an Augmented Reality interactive experience

In first designing this project, the main component was the ability to display a fantasy world to the viewer. I quickly iterated through several ideas, including projection mapping, video work, and more. I also developed several ideas for potential environments in this stage.

Keeping in mind the resources available to me, including technology constraints and the deadline for the project, I made the decision to display the worlds through the user's phone. I then came up with different ideas for how the user interaction would flow, until I created a storyboard I was satisfied with.

Once I had a solid idea of the user interaction, I began planning out the animations and look of each environment in a way that would feel responsive to the user. It was important that the user feel like they are affecting the world in the portal to emphasize the feeling that a hole in reality has opened up. 

After creating the 3D models for the worlds and coding in JavaScript to enable the interactive elements, I had a testable prototype try out the basic interactions on real users.

I gathered feedback from users, such as how the instructions could be better presented, if the portal concept made intuitive sense to testers, how I could make the interactions more clear, etc. Using this feedback, I was able to polish some of the environments, streamline the instructions, and present the finished project by the deadline.