Brief
Brand and design an interface for an augmented reality app for a smartphone. The purpose of the app is to educate users about local history through recreating historical sites with augmented reality technology. This app should offer an immersive experience for people of all ages so out-of-the-box functionality is a necessity.
Solution
Drawing upon the idea that clarity comes with the passage of time, I named the app Hindsight. Of course, this name also has a nod towards the use of vision which is the main feature of the app. The logo is striking and minimalistic; a vigilant eye created from combining a location pin point with left and right facing arrows sygnifying past and present. The app itself is designed to be easy to use and intuitive, with an uncluttered icon-driven interface.
Where are you?
Upon launching the app, an automatic GPS search is performed to determine your location. If successful, you are invited to tap the eye and begin exploring the historical site with the Hindsight app.
Insight Mode
If the app cannot determine your location, you are prompted to retry searching. Failing this second attempt, you may enter a 3 character code found at the location which corresponds to that specific site. At this point, the augmented reality feature will be unavailable since a valid GPS signal is needed for it to operate. However, the code means that you will not miss out on learning more about the site by allowing you to enter its 'Insight Mode' which grants access to the site's media and information content.
An introduction and tutorial to Hindsight is given upon the app's first use.
Hindsight Hotspots
The app displays hotspots across the augmented reality image that shift and change as you traverse around the historical site. The user can select what type of media they see, ranging from photographs, video, audio and textual information. These media types are colour coded for ease of use and can be accessed simply by tapping on the desired hotspot.
History is all around you
The Hindsight app also has a map feature overlayed across Google Maps which allows the user to explore their surrounding area or further afield to discover other Hindsight-enabled historical sites.
