Go Fish - Sydney Aquarium
'Go Fish' is the result of extensive user research into the Young Adult audience and its experience of Sydney Aquarium. Upon discovering that they find it to be a boring, static & purely visual experience we developed an Augmented Reality App that creates interaction through gamification and completing quests. The users must utilise knowledge learned from the Aquarium to be successful.
UI/UX Design
My role: UX Research, Ideation, Prototyping, Illustrations (with Yida), Wireframing, High Fidelity UI, UI animations
Co-collaborators: Yida Tan, Keegan Haugh, Jason Moisiadis
Project Overview
Qualitative Research
To gather our qualitative research we used a methodology called "Context Mapping." This involves running intensive generative group sessions with the aim of unlocking key user insights and latent knowledge.
To do this we created and distributed a sensitising booklet which the participants were required to complete before the sessions. We worked with 10 young adults over the course of two different sessions.
Data Analysis
Our qualitative data was analysed through the creation of an affinity diagram. Here is a small sample of the diagram we created:
Research Insights
Once our data was analysed and we had our research insights, we created an infographic to clearly display our user needs:
Ideation
From the research it was clear that the Aquarium's lack of interaction was one of the considerable reasons why Young Adults found it to be a boring experience. We chose to focus on creating an interactive solution that connected them to the Aquarium's marine exhibit and met the Aquarium's educational and conservationist goals. We utilised a number of ideation exercises to generate our ideas and then individually created a user storyboard for 2 of our stronger ideas. Here are mine:
Interaction through Narrative
Idea 1
My first idea utilises a narrative approach to creative interactive experiences between the Aquarium visitors and the marine exhibit on display. Here the visitors are introduced to a dramatic story and are tasked with solving it using clues. These clues force the users to interact with the existing marine life on display through an Augmented Reality App on the users own phone. The clues also implicitly require the user to gain some information about marine animals that relates to the educational and conservationist goals of the Aquarium.
Interaction through Gamification
Idea 2
My second idea strongly employs gamification to create a fun and engaging interactions between the Aquarium visitors and the aquatic exhibit. Here the users are tasked with ‘creating the best Aquarium.’ To do so they are put in charge of the marine animals that they need to collect to make this become a reality. For this to occur the users must use the gamification App which is based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Check out the storyboard to find out more!
Final Concept
After consultation with 5 UX professionals we decided to combine parts of the narrative and gamification concepts together. The users would collect fish using an Augmented Reality (AR) App and store these in their virtual tank. They would need to ensure the marine life could co-exist peacefully and find a tank temperature to keep all their animals safe. This required the user to actively learn about the marine life they encountered. The App would be driven along through the completion of quests.
User Journey Map
Whilst designing the App and during user testing we created a user journey map to gauge the users experience of the App and to consider their experiences both before and after the Aquarium visit.
Wireframes
After coming to a consensus for our design we set out with low fidelity prototypes in the form of wireframes. These allowed us to test the user's interactions with the app and hone the experience. Here's an example of part of our wireframes:
High Fidelity UI
After iterating on our low fidelity prototyping a number of times due to user testing we developed these into high fidelity prototypes.
