Platform

The platform will be the main way for people to explore the ideas and builds of others. Every single AR build submission will be shown right on the map. Also championships will be indicated for people to join and participate in an amazing tournament. Its main function is to show the contributions of users and simultaneously allow the same users to vote for their favorite ideas.

Unity prototyping

Whereas a mockup prototype of our platform was created in Adobe XD for the midterm demo day, for communicational purposes. It was chosen to make a more functional interactive app with the help of Unity. The SDK of Mapbox was implemented in Unity and the first version of our prototype worked. You could now see a man actively walking around. In a newer version you could actually see yourself walking around in your own neighborhood. A first implementation of buttons (build button and profile page) was added later on, but not further developed.

Our focus namely shifted from realizing to actually validating our system, based on insights obtained in a meeting with Regina Bernhaupt. We discussed the main parts of both our platform and AR build system that we thought were important to realize and communicate to the public at demo day. For the platform, this was mainly to show its core functionality and aesthetics. Therefore focusing on a more simple realization method in AdobeXD would be a more appropriate choice to realize these goals, as visualizing the user in their own neighborhood was not a core feature and made it harder to realize.

Progress 1 December 2020

The very first version was built upon the prototype made for the midterm demo day. A clearer distinction needed to be made between the different types of submissions and an overall calmer aesthetic and clearer hierarchy of on-screen items needed to be implemented. The customizable options were left out as these were not part of the platform’s core functionalities. A preview screen of builds were added for accessibility’s sake.

Progress 2 December 2020

The aesthetics were greatly improved in the third version. Every build page was fully colored and the saturation of colors was increased to make the app feel more alive. The voting button in the championship’s build previews were indicated with a heart as interface metaphor and the preview itself would get green once a build has been voted for.

Progress 3 December 2020

The fourth version received the first implementation of a cluster and got rid of the option to submit a comment as it would deviate too much from the main focus of our project: the AR building system. The pages of individual pages were transformed back to mainly white, mainly because the top part was now an image, instead of an indication of the type of submission.

Progress 8 till 10 December 2020

Personal profiles, as well as an achievement system was added in the fifth iteration. The seventh iteration improved the boring aesthetic of the previous achievement visualization. This iteration also added medals to the at the time three best ideas in the championship.

Progress 16 December 2020 - The final version of the platform

Eventually during iteration eight till ten many astonishing improvements were made to make the app convey the actual feeling of being an app. The homescreen now had a real image of the user’s surroundings, as well as a profile page button. The build submissions contained actual building footage made with our own app. The championship had its own button for submissions for this specific tournament. For better hierarchy, the buttons on submission pages were decreased in size. To make the buttons pop, as well as the title of the build, the white background was replaced with an even more highly saturated colors.