Fort Ben AR
Explore history through engaging experiences
FORT BEN AR
Overview
Fort Ben AR is an augmented reality mobile application that focuses on exploring the history of the former Fort Benjamin Harrison through engaging experiences.
Background Story
Fort Benjamin Harrison is US Army post located in Lawrence, Indiana between 1906 to 1991. The Fort saw its highest level of activity during World War I and World War II and it remains an excellent example of military facility planning from the early 20th century.
Role
Project planning, competitive research, user research, storyboarding, prototyping, test protocol development, test facilitation, test data analysis
Stakeholder: Schneider Geospatial
Arts for Lawrence won $5.8M endowment to promote the history and culture of the former Fort Benjamin Harrison military base. They hired Schneider Geospatial to develop a history-focused augmented reality mobile app & We partnered with Schenider Geospatial to guide their development with research and design of Fort Ben AR app.
SOLUTION OVERVIEW
Introducing Fort Ben AR
THE PROCESS
Surveys
Contextual Inquiry
Competitive Analysis
Persona
Journey Map
Defining Requirements
Brainstorming
Sketching
Storyboarding
​
Low Fidelity Prototype
High Fidelity Prototype
Usability Testing
Think Aloud
SUS
Research
Ideation
Design
Test
RESEARCH
Understanding
-
Why mobile AR?
-
Who are our target users?
-
What are the wants of users?
-
What problems do they face in exploring historical places?
-
What are currently existing products?
-
How do we deliver quality MVP?
App form to be Augmented Reality Mobile App was one of the major stakeholder requirements.
It allows learning about the Fort area in a more engaging and visual manner compared to other guided tours which are mostly audio.
​
It also removes dependency on group tours which are hard to find.
Why Mobile AR?
Surveys
Surveys were distributed to understand user group demographics and their preferred locations.
​
We received 31 responses.
Contextual Inquiry
Interviewed residents and frequent visitors about the location, what they like about the area, what are their preferred locations and what they would like to see in the application.
Market Research
To understand how the current platforms compared, we evaluated several features considered to be important from user specifications.
Insights
People are interested in-
-
Getting high-level information about historical sites and tours even before reaching specific locations
-
Experiencing historical images, videos in AR form and hear stories about selected locations
-
Finding nearby services (food, entertainment, rest area etc.)
-
Sharing what they learn with friends and family
Target Audience
Resident
People who reside in the Fort Ben area who are eager to learn more details about the area and share it with others.
Visitors
People who visit the Fort Ben area and are interested in the historical sites but don’t know where to start getting information.
Resident Persona
Visitor Persona
Resident Journey Map
Visitor Journey Map
Competitive Analysis
To understand how the current platforms compared, we evaluated several features considered to be important from our user specifications.
IDEATION
Sketches
Process involved sketching and whiteboarding possible features and flows along with my team members. Exploring as many possibilities and narrowing down on those by considering pros and cons of selected 4 ideas.
An ideal experience?
Our ideal history experience involved below features-
​
-
Historical Timeline
-
Exploration through gameplay
-
Day in the life
-
Find local businesses
Priority Matrix
Priority matrix was used to identify the most important features for the project to deliver MVP. Achieved collaborative consensus with the stakeholders by discussing the features we wanted to implement, narrowing down by technical constraints and time taken ship features.
DESIGN
Low Fidelity Prototype
After wireframing a few directions for identified features, we did conduct pilot tests on low fidelity prototype to identify what's working, what's not working and/or any confusion to user.
​
Insights from pilot test
​​
-
Historical timeline was not discoverable
-
Facts didn't seem tappable
-
Navigating through historic photos was difficult
-
Concerns about walking distance
-
Navigation constraints
-
Didn't feel engaging
THE SOLUTION
High Fidelity Prototype
Explore
Explore screen displays available tour modes with brief explanations about the tours.
Consistent bottom bar allows easy navigation.
Historical Timeline
Historical timeline tour starts with choosing a location.
​
Audio guided tour with byte-sized facts of the building/site.
​
Timeline is available to see particular year historical image overlayed on the live camera feed. It allows comparing historical imaging with transparency.
A Day in the Life
A Day in the Life tour starts with choosing a character soldier/officer.
Visit locations character frequented along with audio guided information.
​
Learn more from byte sized facts.
​
Map
Free exploration through Map.
​
Search for Historical sites/characters or local arts using Map.
Camera
When at a location with bootprint QR code, user can start exploring immediately by scanning the code.
Validation
Usability Testing
Goal was to evaluate the prototype design against the objectives we had identified with our stakeholders.
​
Sessions consisted of following steps-
-
We introduced ourselves, and explained the purpose of the project and the test session.
-
We asked the participant about their previous experience with augmented reality. We also asked what the participant expected the app to do, given how we had described it.
-
Asked the participant to complete two scenarios on the test device and think aloud.
-
Scenario 1 - Take a Day in the Life tour​
-
Scenario 2 - Walk to the Theater at the Fort and explore the history of that location.
-
-
Asked participant to provide a single ease question(SEQ) rating after each task.
-
End of session questionnaire to calculate the system usability scale.
-
End of session interview discussing participant experiences, thoughts, suggestions and questions if any.
User Feedback
-
Overall, participants liked the prototype and design concept. 5 out of 6 participants expressed their eagerness towards using the concept app in real.
-
Liked the immersive experience from the audio narration.
-
Participants struggled to find the historical timeline of the Theater. SEQ 4.2 (Industry average SEQ = 5.5)​
-
Wanted more control to start the tour when ready.
-
Would like to see more media for the day in the life mode i.e. soldier sounds, overlayed historical pictures.
​
Next Steps
-
Crowdsourcing stories from locals
-
Creating more engagement i.e. quizzes, games etc.
-
Think about exploring group tour settings
-
Looking for other alternatives to boost local businesses
-
Other tour navigation options (driving, jogging)
Reflection
Fort Ben AR was one of the most interesting projects I've worked on. It was exhilarating to work on a project which involves such a great history, we got a lot of positive feedback from people who can't wait to use the application.
​
Some of the major takeaways-
-
Thinking about the Impact vs Efforts matrix helps in better prioritization with getting consensus among stakeholders, developers and designers.
-
Design should work with engineering early and consistently to grab ideas and validate concepts.
-
Know your metric of success, track the success of your solution and make sure there's time to tweak.
.png){kind=icon}