pARty

Did someone say pARty?

pARty is an augmented reality (AR) escape room that you can play anywhere.

Sizzle Reel

Want to see how it works? Check out the highlights in this video.

Initial Concepting

Our group knew from the start that we wanted to build more than just an app…we wanted to build something interactive, complex, and fun.

We used the following methods to start creating our product:

Mood Boards & Initial Storyline Ideation
Crazy 8s for Interaction Exploration
Onboarding App Ideas

Mood board ideas including party games and Christmas themes

Crazy 8s sketches to create interactions

Second image showing crazy 8s design sprint for interactions

Mood board

Crazy 8s for Interactions

Onboarding Sketches

Initial User & Competitive Research

Discovered themes around
- Sociability (Extroverts, Introverts, Ambiverts)
- All liked having an activity to group meeting around
- Medium group size (4-10)
- Game Tendencies
- Escape Room Experience
- Immersive Tech Knowledge

Discovered opportunities for
- Lower cost solutions
- High quality digital solutions
- Game packs

Competitive Analysis

Personas

Discovered opportunities for
- Varying social levels
- Ideas of fun

Individual Interviews

Design & Prototypes

Once we created the storyline and narrowed down our interactions from the Crazy 8s design sprint. Our user flow and interactions mapped out with storyline is shown in the images to the left.

User Flow

Information architecture for our product

Our information architecture is complex. Completing certain tasks will reveal new clues that lead to another task. We also incorporated AR elements that were meant to throw players off. They may be able to click on it (i.e. the globe item) but it will not help them in the game.

Information Architecture (IA)

Our mid-fi screens include both onboarding, mid-fi interactions, and the tv screen to supplement the experience and make it feel like a more immersive experience.

Mid-Fi Screens

Our designers built out a design system shown in the photo.

Design System

Hi-Fi Screens

Interactions

Using Adobe Aero, our team created AR elements to interact with and puzzles to solve anywhere with their phones. We used Figma to build out the interface that our users would see and interact with in addition to using Adobe Aero to build out the AR.

Implementation & Testing

low-fi testing image of someone using the cardboard phone to interact with paper AR

Using simple materials, we simulated the interactions we wanted to implement in our game using paper ‘AR elements’ and a cardboard ‘smartphone.’ This helped us decide what specific interactions (tap, swipe, shake, etc.) we wanted to implement in our hi-fi prototypes.

Tested 3 interactions

(1) Find something broken and fix it
(2) Find and open drawer for clue
(3) Playing the bells

Overall Findings

Task 3 was most difficult (required musical abilities)
Task 2 was easiest and fastest after getting used to the system in task 1
Finding and interacting AR elements was easy
Haptic sound feedback was very valuable

Low-Fi Testing

hands interacting with fake phone and tapping the screen

Similar to our low-fi testing, but now with Adobe Aero AR, we tested 4 Tasks

(1) Find & fix the doll and find the next clue
(2) Find the clue in Santa's naughty/nice list
(3) Find the next clue within the photo wall
(4) Find the last clue by playing music

Technical Issues

Technical difficulties with iPhone vs. Android testing
Because of this, we could not make direct comparisons or average times for tasks since not all could be completed depending on the phone OS

Overall Findings

Setup of the AR room/elements was difficult
More interactivity with the other AR elements not part of clue
Most 'fun' ? (varied)
Suggestion: overlay an elf costume to help clarify the storyline

Hi-Fi Testing

Lessons Learned

Creating an interactive game with immersive elements is way more involved than we originally thought and comparably more complex than our usual Figma screen projects
Not only does the interface have to be usable, but it has to be fun for users too
This project was a fun challenge
There is still a lot more work needed before this game could be released

A. Fleming Seay | Interaction Design Professor | Director of User Experience Engineering and Research @ Dell

“You nailed this project. I can’t say enough good things about it, so I’ll just share the following with you. During your presentation I overheard another student say ‘Dude, this is insane, man’ in reference to your AR demo videos. I agree. Further, I extend that statement to apply to your entire effort here. Congratulations on this very impressive body of work.”