Objective: Generate innovative ideas and create low-fidelity prototypes for testing.
Conduct brainstorming sessions to generate a wide range of potential solutions.Use mind mapping or other creative techniques to explore different ideas.Create low-fidelity wireframes to visualize potential user interfaces.Develop clickable prototypes using tools like Figma or Adobe XD.Conduct usability testing with potential users to gather feedback on the prototypes.Iterate on the prototypes based on user feedback.
Brainstorming and sketching
Throughout my research phase, my imagination was going wild with unique possibilities, ideas that I sketched out as they came. "Drawing is thinking," and I made a lot of sketches of how an AR-based parking solution could work, while simultaneously researching current in-vehicle displays. I explored a range of features that we could incorporate:
I was constantly working out how AR and HUDs could work in the parking scenario, while exploring other possibilities. Prominent questions I had: Are HUDs safe? How do they work? How plausible are they to incorporate into modern vehicles? Can they work on older vehicles?
Ideation of how icons could look, whether they'd be invasive, etc., and necessary hardware, like forward-facing cameras and sensors, facial mapping cameras, and how much of the windshield needed to be free of visualizations.
Ideas of how a parking-based HUD projector could function.
Low-fidelity wireframes and data displays
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Symbol & icon system
I developed a basic system of icons and symbols to mock up my ideas for the Carcloud app, and later refined them to polish them up and include indicators that I hadn't initially thought of.
1st mockup: sticky notes on the windshield
Curious how an augmented-reality HUD would seem in real life (on a budget), I tested the display in my car at various crowded venues using sticky notes on my windshield to simulate my fledgling concepts for the Carcloud solution. Every so often, I then (safely) rearranged the sticky notes that indicated things like parking space availability, arrows showing where to go for open spaces, parking space size information (such as standard, compact, and oversized), and icons indicating destination, parking garages, handicap spaces, and valets. Another important element that would be necessary in a real-life AR HUD scenario would be the in-cab sensors that do facial and eye tracking, which I simulated with extra phone camera lenses I had laying around, in different positions in the cab.
Other information included icons for parking garages, meters, valets, and destination points
Sample of my simulation
Showing both image and video to the team and users provided essential critiques that helped me develop a system for icon placement, size, and information displayed.
I devised a few basic parking and navigation symbols for this mockup
Mock facial mapping sensors placed in different spots throughout the cab
2nd mockup: nighttime
visualizations using a static child's toy
Having gained some understanding from my sticky note session of how visual elements might affect the driving experience, I recognized that a nighttime test would be beneficial, so I used an illuminated drawing toy to represent an aftermarket dashboard-mounted HUD. After rearranging things appropriately and taking notes, I wanted to test as realistic an HUD as I could by reflecting the icons and text onto the windshield after laying the plexiglass toy flat on the dashboard.
1st mockup: dashboard-mounted HUD
2nd mockup: I rearranged the plexiglass and icons on it to reflect on the dashboard
The reflecting icons were much clearer, albeit imperfect due to double imaging on both sides of the windshield pane
3rd mockup: animated images
using a projector
After the nighttime prototyping session above, I theorized that since glowing text appeared nicely enough on the windshield (at nighttime at least), perhaps I could use a projector to prototype my ideas directly onto the windshield of my car. I thought that my projector would be bright enough at 15,000 lumens, so I gave it a shot with some basic icons and GIFs I made or found online. The process turned out to be more technical than I'd originally thought, and the projected image went right through the windshield. Not to be dismayed, I grabbed anything in my house I could find that could work as an alternative see-through substrate to shine the projector beam onto that would keep the image intact. Interestingly, the thing that worked best was the plastic lid to some glass kitchenware.
The kitchenware lid held the image nicely without obscuring the view out front of the car
Moving images displayed beautifully, even with a windshield that kept fogging up
4th Mockup: AR prototype
using Adobe Aero
At this point, I delved deeper into augmented reality, and began playing around with AR-generating apps like Adobe Aero to make actual AR prototypes. I used some of the navigation icons snd symbols I made to simulate real world AR situations, like how it might look how Carcloud might notify the driver of an available parking space.
My first truly augmented-reality prototype (one in which the AR object stays constant no matter where the eye [or camera lens] is looking)
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