Project Details

gARdens

AR gardening experience in green spaces

Applications: Adobe Aero, Unity, Figma

Team members:

Angela Truong (UX/UI Designer, Researcher)

Adrian Ramos (Programmer, UX Designer, Researcher)

Sophia Cruz (UX/UI Designer, Researcher)

Duration: August 2023 - November 2023

Purpose: To facilitate interactions that create a sense of belonging and provide personal fulfillment in green spaces.

Introduction

Our team was tasked to define a problem and produce a solution in relation to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals formulated by the United Nations. In addition, the solution must incorporate an emerging technology (Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, or Augmented Reality). We selected SDG 11: Sustainable Cities, and Communities after careful consideration of each goals' feasibility and our personal interests. Goal 11 aims to achieve sustainability, safety, inclusivity and adaptability of urban areas by 2030. As the goal is still quite broad, our team narrowed down to a specific area within sustainable cities and communities that we wanted to solve. We selected target 11.7 which hopes to provide women, children, persons with disabilities, and elderly access to safe, accessible, and inclusive green spaces within urban spaces.

Design Process

Define

Defining the Problem

Like all projects, the most difficult step was the beginning as we were required to define a problem within the SDG 11 space without prior knowledge or a specific brief. The team started a quick research session to gain a grasp of the problem spaces that have emerged and how the market has approached these problems. From the research session, an initial problem statement was formulated to guide our future research.

Problem statement

"How might we improve green public spaces* to be more safe, inclusive, and accessible to further encourage community use and engagement?"

*Urban green spaces fulfill a variety of roles, ranging from being social spaces and areas for recreation and cultural purposes, to counteracting environmental degradation such as pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and urban heating

Background Research

Literature

Review

Inclusivity and Accessibility within Green Spaces
Rejuvenating Urban Public Spaces
Environment Wellbeing

Key themes found from academic sources

Market

Analysis

Lack of quality green spaces to support a healthy lifestyle
Identified strengths and weaknesses of existing solutions

Examining existing solutions to our problem

Stakeholder Considerations

Potential stakeholders:

General Public
Local Councils
Urban Planners
Event Organisers

Discussion of parties involved with our solution

Hover over the boxes for a quick summary of what our team found!

Primary Research

Survey

Respondents are aware of the positive health implications both physically and mentally that green spaces provide
Events, community engagement, and safety incentivise people to visit

Findings from a survey relating to participation and relationship with green spaces

(30 respondents recorded)

Ethnographic

Research

Facilities and businesses attracted commuters to utilise walkways in green spaces
Groups (people & pets) tend to stay for longer
Facilities that allow people to congregate tended to act as a 'main hub' within these areas.

Conducted in several green spaces in Sydney at different times to observe behaviours and usage of green spaces

Interviews

Promotes personal fulfilment and positive connection with oneself
Provide an escape for people to recover and embrace play
People are more comfortable engaging with green spaces if it offers more facilities

Findings from interviews to further understand people's perceptions of green spaces

(8 respondents recorded)

Hover over the boxes for a quick summary of what our team found!

Results from survey, ethnographic research, and interviews

Reframe

Reframing our initial problem statement was essential as the insights gained from our data synthesis had given perspective and context to the underlying issues.

4 W's

We used the Four W’s method consisting of asking four basic questions - who? what? where? and why? These questions reground us, allowing identification of problems synthesised from our research, and define the challenges at hand.

4 criteria for success

Regathering the problem area, we sought to create 4 criteria for success to assist us in evaluating when eventually ideating solutions. These consist of:

Inclusivity

The solution has to be able to be used by everyone, directed by SDG 11.7.

Wellbeing

The solution should influence positive social, mental, and/or physical wellbeing.

5 Whys

The 5 Whys technique was employed with our initial problem statement being the subject to understand the root cause of the problem area - why exactly do we need green spaces to be safe, accessible and inclusive? - revealing the fundamental nature, thus, able to discover effective resolutions. The root cause realized was quite powerful: the need for a sense of belonging. Belonging - within a space, community, or self - is a compelling, all-encapsulating idea that highlights the significance of the SDG goal and specifically target 11.7. We have reframed the problem space with a new statement based on our team's new findings.

Safety

The user must feels

safe throughout the experience of

the solution.

Connection

The solution creates opportunities to

connect with the self, other people and/or can create interactions to encourage play

Why exactly do we need green spaces to be safe, accessible and inclusive?

Sense of Belonging

within a space, community, or self - is a compelling, all-encapsulating idea that highlights the significance of the SDG goal and specifically target 11.7.

Reframed problem statement

"How can we leverage green spaces to create interactions that foster personal fulfilment and nurture a sense of belonging within the space?"

Meaning, how can we utilise the green space already built into urban areas to give a novel yet social and fulfilling experience to users, heightening a sense of belonging both individually and collectively within that same space?

Ideation

To start our ideation, the group initially focused on quantity over quality. Using forced association, ideas created by combining ‘unrelated’ themes to conceive of new and novel ideas, primed us into the thinking space for generating ideas for green spaces incorporating emerging technologies. Crazy 8’s was used to explore ideas further, evaluating and combining ideas to expand into viable solutions. Upon conceptualising ideas, the strongest ones were matched up against the criteria, the reframed problem statement, and a decision matrix to further conclude which 3 concepts has the most potential for development. The 3 concepts were expanded on through storyboarding and were accompanied with a detailed sketch to visualise the concept's features. Each potential solution included a brief description of its purpose and functions, a comparative analysis, and possible limitations.

Forced association, Crazy 8's, Decision Matrix, and Storyboards with descriptions

Decision matrix for final concept

To decide systematically and objectively which of the three concepts had the most potential for further development, another decision matrix was employed and each of the group members participated in rating the concepts to a set of factors. The factors that were to be assessed were as follows: inclusivity, wellbeing, safety, connection, viability, feasibility, desirability, ease of use, immersion, and user engagement. The scale used to rate each factor ranged from -2 (terrible) to 2 (excellent) and were then totalled at the end of the survey to determine the concept with the most potential. Two concepts gained a score of 10.6, so to narrow down which of the concept we will be further developing, our team discussed potential changes to be made for the two concepts based on feedback and discussed relativity of the concept to our problem statement.

Concept iteration

GARdens is the rework of ParkBark! (concept 2) where users interact with elements typically found in gardening rather than AR pets. The concept encourages users to grow and foster augmented plants as well as engage in activities that also invite other members of the community. Our research findings revealed users with a short duration and infrequent park visits have a desire to visit green spaces but lacked the resources and purpose to do so. By providing a brief and engaging application for users to interact with, users can gain the motivation to linger in parks by themselves or with others. The concept of the application hopes to invoke a sense of belonging and personal fulfillment to fuel a user’s motivation to visit parks or stay in parks for longer. gARdens aims to incorporate AR and gardening to improve a user’s overall park experience. To further explore the context and its distinctiveness from other solutions, we asked the following questions:

Questions to explore the context and distinctiveness of the concept:

What reason is there to use the concept strictly in parks?
- Compared to AR pets which can be implemented anywhere, AR gardens leverages the space of green public spaces to add an additional perspective to these already existing spaces. The concept aims to incorporate aspects of real gardening to make the experience familiar yet novel

What difference is there between this concept and other AR applications such as Pokemon Go?
- Pokemon Go requires constant users interaction in multiples areas for users to get the most out of the app and experience what the developers intended. Moreover, AR is limitedly utilised in Pokemon Go, whereby the main AR interaction is catching Pokemon and viewing PokeStops.

How does this concept link back to our research? At what grounds are we basing the concept on?
- Our research shows that on average participants stay in green spaces for a relatively short amount of time - less than 30 minutes to 1 hour at a time. Moreover, participants frequent green spaces on average a few times a month on average. Understanding this frequency, gARdens aims to be an experience that users can engage with within the amount of time spent as well as have no requirements to actively engage with the elements outside of the location, but still provide novel new experiences when users engage in the app after period of time has passed.
- Participants from our research mentioned that they understand the positive implications that green spaces have on their physical and mental health - even in short periods - however, activities to do at a green space leaves much to be desired. Activities that participants mentioned that would incentive more engagement include more social activities, more places that affords play, and park-specific events. GARdens aims to touch on these incentives utilising augmented reality and with the concepts presented within the app.

Low-Fidelity Prototypes

Two low-fidelity prototypes were produced in this stage to test two aspects of our product: one for Augmented Reality and the other for the user-interface for mobile devices.

Augmented Reality prototype (Paper prototype)

The paper prototype for our concept gARdens consists of origami flowers situated on green crepe paper to simulate real-life green spaces. The user will use a cardboard cut out which will act as a mobile device and various UI cut outs were created to be shown in accordance with the interactions the users will make as seen. The AR space and the mobile UI elements were separated to identify patterns in user behaviour.

Testing

The paper prototype was tested with 5 people within the age range of 18-25 years old and were recruited via social media. Participant selection was based on: proximity to the tester, participation frequency of green spaces, and knowledge of AR technology. Observations were recorded and participants were encouraged to think-aloud their interactions as they go through the prototype. And as the sessions were recorded, observations were noted at a later stage. In-person user testing revealed that users had a good understanding of the act of gardening and were quite familiar with AR. Tasks were straightforward with some steps causing frustration as users needed instructions and a better interface to execute their actions.

Insights

Users felt frustrated at the lack of information describing what they were interacting with

Users want to be able to know how exactly to execute what they plan on doing

Users understood the premise of the concept and had familiarity of gardening despite little experience with AR

User Interface Prototype (Wireframing)

Our application, gARdens, required testing for interactions occurring inside and outside of the AR space. As the features for our applications were further refined, three main concepts were produced on Figma to measure the features’ level of interactivity, user engagement, and users’ overall navigation process.

Interface iteration

Some user-interface elements from the paper prototype were improved based on the feedback from testing. Information clarity and additional interactive elements were added to improve the user's experience.

An information button was added next to the flowers to show that it is interactable. The two UI buttons in the original prototype were replaced with an action button that displays different features upon interaction.

Paper prototype

Wireframe

Originally, an available plot must be selected by the user to plant a seed. A group discussion realised that there was little movement involved with this method of planting. The proposed solution was to enable the user to move their phone around to find an available plot to increase engagement and interactivity.

Paper prototype

Wireframe

Concepts and Testing Results

To test the 3 concepts, our team utilised think-alouds, interviews, and SUS (System Usability Scale). These testing methods were used to measure their interactions and engagement with the application. The testing sessions were also recorded and transcribed for future synthesis work. 6 people within the age range of 18-25 years old tested in all the concept testing sessions. These participants were gathered from social media and through university connections, interest and engagement with green spaces, and knowledge of AR technology. User and testing goals were created to understand whether our product has enabled users to achieve all the goals provided when interacting with the product.

Concept 1: Non-AR experience Testing (Initial Experience)

This concept primarily focuses on a user’s initial interaction with the application before entering the AR space. Focus on UI clarity, familiarity, and recognition was essential to increase the ease of access of the application and for the slow introduction of gARdens’ features. Access into the application through scanning was also considered as part of the onboarding process as this was first-step for the user’s application journey.

The UI prevented the users from navigating the application smoothly due to the lack of error-handling elements. Tasks done in this concept caused confusion and required users to unintentionally explore the application to achieve their goals. Revamping the homepage and the ‘main menu’ (action button) through the addition or changes in labels, iconography, and options will assist in increasing its usability.

Concept 2: Planting and Watering (Personal Experience)

User pain-points revolved mostly around information clarity and recognition. Interactable elements were indistinguishable to the users as there was no indication or had no distinct look for recognition. In relation to concept 1, users took alternative paths to complete the concept due to navigation problems. Users questioned the purpose of planting and watering for their own personal fulfillment as there was no incentive for these actions. Additional features will be added to introduce incentives, and another activity to replace planting will be considered to measure user engagement.

Concept 3: The Lotus (Social Experience)

The Lotus is a sub-feature which aims to add a social aspect to our application with the integration of other users’ inputs. It is an entity in the AR space which displays users’ responses to prompts with ‘stories’. This aims to encourages users to interact with the environment and to find a sense of community. A variety of prompts are utilised to invite users to share their thoughts with the Lotus.

The purpose of the Lotus was well received, but the UI elements prevented the users from being satisfied with this concept as a whole. Similar to concept 1, there was a lack of effective error-handling and issues with recognition which hindered users to smoothly navigate through the concept to complete tasks. One feature (mini-map hotspots) was not utilised due to the quality of the interface. Changes to this concept will revolve around the UI to increase usability.

Summary

The Initial Experience lacked error-handling features which hindered app navigation and caused confusion. The Personal Experience had issues in information clarity and recognition, and purpose for their actions. The Social Experience struggled with error-handling and UI recognition which also caused navigation problems. Future iterations focused on improving the UI to increase its overall usability, and addition of features to improve user engagement.

Testing results and analysis

Mid-Fidelity Prototype

Moving forward from the low-fidelity prototypes, mid-fidelity prototypes were created for both the Non-AR aspects and the AR aspects of our application. The Non-AR aspects were further developed in Figma whereas the AR aspects were prototyped in Adobe Aero. Our team had discussed the incorporation of Adobe Aero to imitate an AR experience due to its ease of use and lack of complexity for development which allowed for a quick AR prototype to fit into our timeline. While the prototype could have implemented the AR aspect in the final prototype, it was assumed that static wireframes could not truly capture user behaviour when interacting with the AR space.

Concepts and Testing Results

In-person user testing evaluated the three concepts previously present for the lo-fidelity prototypes with some changes to fit the iterations made from user feedback. Think-alouds, A/B testing, semi-structured post interviews, SUS, and heuristic evaluation was used as testing methods for our product. Findings were synthesised and analysed for each concept to continue the iteration process.

Concept 1: Onboarding Experience (Figma wireframe)

This concept revolved around the pre-AR experience to introduce the application and its features to the users in Figma. One of the features, the leaderboard, lacked information clarity and purpose. Wording confusion was the main issue with the other features as the labels included words that were not associated with its proposed function. Information clarity of the UI elements must be improved for smooth onboarding experience.

Concept 2: Planting and Treasure Hunt Experience (AR experience)

The concept involves two main features which centers around the main idea of gARdens. With the use of Adobe Aero, A/B testing was used specifically for this concept to measure the level of user engagement and personal fulfillment between the two features. Findings displayed a preference with planting over treasure hunting as there was an intimate connection present with cultivating one’s own plants. The UI was well-received for its ease and clarity, but the UI in combination with the AR elements was not. Scale and viewing angles caused visual discomfort when interacting in the AR space hindering user interaction. Improvement in the appearance of the AR space to increase its ease of use and navigation.

Concept 3: Social Experience (AR experience)

Also using Adobe Aero, the social experience focused on plant discovery to increase the user’s interaction in the AR space. Users were willing to explore the space but struggled to differentiate between the user-generated and app-generated plants. Other concerns for this concept revolved around accessibility and convenience as users needed to exert extra effort to view specific elements in the AR space. Despite these issues, the collaborative feature received positive feedback as it allowed for community interactions. There is room for improvement in the UI to deduce user discomfort when interacting with the space.

Summary

The mid-fidelity prototypes' UI layout facilitated user navigation, but the absence of clear instructions diminished overall usability. It is vital to enhance usability for those unfamiliar with AR; this would involve offering additional guidance in both the Non-AR and AR experiences. There is a user preference for planting over treasure hunting to achieve personal fulfillment and connection with the environment. However, the social lotus failed to evoke a sense of belonging despite its positive feedback during the previous tesitng sessions.

High-Fidelity Prototypes

Iteration

The feedback from the mid-fidelity user testing led to the removal of features due to user preferences and discussion of its purpose. While the social aspect of gARdens received good criticism, the Lotus was no considered to be a part of the planting experience by the users and acted as a completely separate entity. The high-fidelity iteration integrated both of the social aspect and the planting experience into one interaction. In addition to this, the scale of gARdens in the AR space was lessened to accommodate for those who are unfamiliar with AR and to assist in the features' discoverability.

Main feature iteration (planting and watering)

The main feature has been changed to include fortnightly prompts as an additional reason for users to grow their plants. Users will be able to interact with their plants and interact with other plants to aid its growth through community watering. This allows the main planting experience to not only lead to one’s personal fulfillment but also to one’s sense of belonging.

Sub feature addition (profile score)

The new sub feature of a profile score was introduced to encourage engagement and interaction within green spaces. The profile score reuses the idea the achievements feature to reward the user for their activeness. Users can increase their score through actions such as amount of plants planted and watered, prompts answered, and green spaces visited. The sub feature’s effectiveness in promoting participation in green spaces will require testing to measure user engagement.

Application usage

The implementation of these changes will increase the product’s overall quality to fit the standards of a high-fidelity prototype. Higher quality mobile screen interfaces will be created on Figma with the development of a brand image, and Unity and 8th Wall will be utilised to perform AR interactions that Adobe Aero could not support.

App demo showcase

Testing and Results

The guerilla testing method was implemented as the testing method for the hi-fidelity prototype as the project timeline was quite short for the inclusion of iterations and testing. Guerilla testing allowed the application to be tested without pre-selected participants and to quickly test the effectiveness of our features without too many considerations for the testing protocol.

Overall, user satisfaction with the application’s features and UI was positive. Users felt immersed in the AR space as their screen had little visual clutter. The desire for more interactive features and features to incentivise their actions was also revealed by the users. Users felt that the application’s features were suitable for short stays and brief engagement in green spaces.

Users still faced some challenges in navigating through the application’s UI due to information clarity, feedback and error-handling. Some elements had obstructions and inconsistencies in both the non-AR and AR screens which hindered tasks to be completed quickly.

Evaluation

Overview

Our project ‘gARdens’ is an immersive mobile augmented reality (AR) experience aimed to enhance park experiences by blending the AR world with reality to foster play, belonging, and personal fulfilment within a community.

Users can find the ‘gARdens’ decal situated across local parks with instructions on how to interact with the app. Users can step into a shared garden space where they can plant and nurture both their own and the community's flowers, fostering a sense of togetherness and growth.

The flowers need sustained attention as requirements for flowers to bloom consist of time-sensitive events such and when they can water their plant and when activity prompts can be interacted with.

Addressing the Problem Area

‘gARdens’ as a concept and execution addresses various parts of our problem statement as well as the SDG goal 11.7 outlining the need for universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible green spaces. Our concept aims to address particularly safety within green spaces by incorporating a space for personal fulfillment, play, and social/community engagement. By focusing on promoting a sense of personal fulfillment and sense of belonging in green spaces, a novel idea is produced that is not a similar approach to other solutions in the market. The main attraction of our concept pertains to being able to plant and care for a user’s own plant. Through time-sensitive events such as watering and answering a certain number of thoughtful prompts, the users’ plant blossom into various types of flowers. The act of caring and answering to prompts hopes to ignite a sense of personal fulfillment within the user.

'gARdens' feeds into the innate human desire for play and social interaction which enable adults to receive the positive effects on personal and social aspects of their life. The spontaneity of finding the ‘gARdens’ decal in real world parks and the novelty of the AR world entice even adults to engage with play. Alongside the various situated decals, the AR space is a shared garden where people of the community is able to collectively grow virtual flowers as well as interact with other members of the community’s flowers. Answers to the prompts will also be displayed so that behind the augmented reality, there is most definitely a person behind the thought of each answer. This integration of the community provides incentive for social events and also a deeper sense of belonging. This trifecta of concepts along with its executions hopes to invite more diverse groups of people into a safer environment, particularly in green spaces.

Future Development

With the limited scope that we were able to work on this project, it is important to also acknowledge how ‘gARdens’ also falls short and where improvements should be considered regarding its concept and execution.

Inclusivity Within Community

‘gARdens’ does not address the SDG goal of 11.7 holistically, especially towards mentions the importance of inclusivity within the community. Being a mobile app that is highly dependent on visual communication, there is a question on how to make future versions more accessible for people with disabilities - particularly for those with visual impairments as the current version has no accessibility features.

Research Bias

Early qualitative and quantitative research was also quite biased as the responses were skewed to the younger population (20-25 year olds). There were limited insights towards older adults that we were able to gain and as such, the findings from this certain population has been the one to drive future iterations. Due to the limitation of scope, there is room to improve the concept and app that involves a variety of people’s needs.

Appeal and Integration

With augmented reality being an emerging technology, slow in both development and integration within people’s everyday routines, there is still a general unfamiliarity of what the technology provides. Many users that we tested on and within our research either haven’t had experience with AR or have had limited engagement through Pokemon Go - which is helpful, but is not a holistic representation of what AR can do. Thus, the reality is that if this concept were to be launched officially, due to the unfamiliarity of the tech at this point, may have difficulty in reaching a wider audience. Which does begs the questions for future versions - how can we make ‘gARdens’, and many AR products more appealing and familiar?