Bring joy and connection to your world with an AR pet that learns, grows, and plays by your side!
Project Overview
Pets offer companionship and emotional support, but owning a real pet isn't always feasible. So we decided to make an Augmented Reality (AR) pet app that can interact with the user, and user can train and have fun with their AR pet. Users can interact with the pets through intuitive gestures or a user-friendly interface, such as training and nurturing their virtual pets.
While our initial focus is on interactive and engaging AR pets, we acknowledge the potential of emotional recognition technology to further personalize the user experience.
Role
UIUX Designer & Developer
Tool
Figma, Unity, C#, Blender
Project Size
2 People AR Class Project
01Why, Who, What?
Why
Emotional Support
Many people, like us, love animals and value the emotional support and companionship they provide but are unable to own a real pet due to restrictions or circumstances.
Who
Pet Lover but...
Our target users are individuals who face challenges in owning a real pet due to various restrictions, including pet-restricted housing or financial constraints that make pet ownership impractical.
What
Emotional Support
An AR-based platform that provides users with an interactive virtual pet. It helps users combat loneliness, offers fun and engaging activities, and creates the joy of keeping a pet.
User Persona
User Journey
User Story
The user downloads the app, completes a simple onboarding process, and select a pet in app, the user sees the chosen virtual pet appear in their space through their phone.
The pet responds to real-world objects, like playing fetch with a tennis ball, and interacts with gestures, such as shaking hands virtually.
The user talks to the pet, which responds with supportive emotions and expressions, enhancing the sense of companionship.
The user walks the virtual pet in the real world, creating an immersive, engaging experience.
02Core Functionalities
Virtual Doll
We aim to let users scan their own doll, and bring their emotion support object come to live. Users would have more attachments to their familiar object.
Mood Tracking
We worked on features such as recognition of users’ facial expressions and identify emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, and stress.
Then, the AR pet can give some feedback and use generative AI to communicate with users.
Gesture Recognition
Users could engage with their AR doll in activities and create more intimacy with it.
Now we have gesture teaching and mood sharing. We would like to have more features like feeding and walking.
03Challenges, Breakthrough, & Detour
Unable to Use Unity Cloud
Due to obstacles encountered while collaborating on Unity Cloud, we transitioned our project code to GitHub.
Hand Collision Detection
Achieving accurate and robust collision detection between hands and objects in interactive environments can be complex.
Length of Fingers Varies
The length of a user's fingers may have an impact on the effectiveness and accuracy of finger detection technologies.
Plugin Confliction
The Emotion Recognition Plugin is causing conflicts with certain settings within our Unity project, resulting in unexpected behavior or errors.
04Design Strategy
MDA Framework
Guided by the principles of the MDA framework (Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics), our app was designed to cultivate deep emotional connections.
Interactive elements go beyond passive engagement, fostering intimacy and trust between users and their virtual companions.
These dynamic interactions encourage users to express their emotions freely within a safe and supportive space, ultimately providing a valuable outlet for stress relief and emotional well-being.
05User Feedback & Improving
Onboarding Process
Recognizing the unique challenges of navigating AR experiences, we incorporated Coach Marks into our onboarding process. These interactive tutorials address user confusion identified during testing, providing clear and concise instructions for interacting with AR elements.
Gesture Instruction guide
To empower users to fully interact with their virtual pets, we implemented an in-app Gesture Instruction guide, which can clearly demonstrate the available gestures and provide exciting incentives for users to deepen their bond with their pet, unlocking new and engaging interaction possibilities.
Add Progress Bar
A visually engaging Progress Bar has been implemented to incentivize consistent interaction with the virtual pet. This dynamic indicator visually represents the growing bond between the user and their pet, providing clear and motivating feedback.
Emotion Diary
To enhance self-reflection and emotional awareness, we've integrated an Emotion Diary feature. Users can record their daily emotions, and the app will provide personalized suggestions based on their entries.
06PrototypeThe prototype after user testing.