Step Inside the Store
Augmented Reality
ROLE
Research
UX Design
Product Design
PROCESS
Discovery
Ideation
Design
TOOLS
Figma
DURATION
2 Months
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Project Description
Background
Augmented reality (AR) overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing the user's perception of their surroundings. This technology is now transforming online shopping, allowing customers to visualize products in their own spaces before buying.
The Challenge
While Augmented Reality (AR) offers significant potential to enhance the online shopping experience, many websites struggle to effectively integrate this technology. This often results in clunky, unintuitive, or even hidden AR features, leading to low user engagement and hindering the realization of AR's full potential.
How might we design intuitive and discoverable AR shopping experiences to encourage widespread use?
Process
User interviews allowed me to directly engage with users to discover their existing knowledge of AR, identify their frustrations with current experiences, and understand their aspirations for how AR could enhance their shopping journey.
Discovery
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AR Unfamiliarity: Participants demonstrated limited prior experience with augmented reality technology.
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AR Education Required: Participants' limited exposure to AR highlights the importance of user education and support.
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Low AR Awareness: Participants' browsing behavior indicated a lack of awareness regarding the presence of AR features.
Ideation
My discovery revealed low AR familiarity and awareness among users. To address this, I focused on two key strategies: education and visibility.
For AR Education, I explored:
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In-app interactive tutorials showcasing AR benefits.
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Contextual tooltips guiding AR interaction.
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Dedicated informational sections explaining AR features.
To increase AR Visibility, I considered:
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Clear visual cues and badges on AR-enabled products.
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Strategic placement of AR features in high-traffic areas.
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Benefit-driven messaging (e.g., "View in") to highlight AR options.
My goal was to increase user understanding and adoption of immersive AR shopping experiences by focusing on education and discoverability.
Solution
Addressing low AR familiarity and awareness, I implemented two key solutions:
Discoverability
A clear action button was placed within the product view to immediately highlight the AR feature.
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Education
A step-by-step tutorial was created to guide users on how to effectively use the AR functionality.
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Project Takeaway
Stepping into this AR project, and still developing my UX skills, my initial inclination was towards a strong focus on primary research. However, discovering and utilizing existing AR studies proved to be a key learning experience. It highlighted a more efficient and impactful way to approach user-centered design, showing me the value of resourcefulness and building upon established knowledge to better utilize creative problem-solving time.
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