CONTEXT GRID
Register Data to Exact Points on Earth.
The Universal Augmented Reality Browser.
My role
User Experience Designer and Unity Developer.
How was the
process like?
Extremely agile in a small team of designers, AI engineers data scientist and app developers. Constant communication was key.
Who is our user?
We had to consider a duality of users, on one hand, the final user who will be browsing the information and on the other hand the company or small business that will use the service to register locations, and products.
Outcome
Context Grid startup is currently seeded and has launched Annotator and HoloJamo for iOS.
ContextGrid is a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2016 by Arka Bala and Keith Teare as the founding investor. Today, the team consists of many dedicated members who have deep skills and experience in Data, AR, AI, Retail & Marketing. Our moto is simple – “Bring the world to life with meaningful contextual data and experiences for all.”
Why?
Currently, there is no way to register a specific location in the physical world into an Augmented Reality layer grid made of data.
Many Augmented Reality experts disagree on how to name this layer: mirror world, AR cloud, magic verse, etc… but everyone agrees that no matter how you name it, it is coming into our world and it is moving fast.
Context Grid supports multiple channels for registering data to enhance how customers interact with the world. Data is location-specific information. For example displaying information in AR, displaying custom deals, warnings, etc. Companies can make their data public, allowing any app to look up and deliver your data. More apps, mean more traffic to your data and enables small business and enterprise clients alike to get started at scale.
AR Design Process
The design process was extremely agile, a small team in constant communication, and having several meetings a day and evolving and iterating ideas as development was in place.
Context Grid being mainly a B2B project, one of the fundamental concerns was how to make the registration process of locations as intuitive and frustration-free as possible.
Secondly, we had to work on the final’s users' needs, type of AR displays that can be included and ways to browse the AR world locations.
Personas
As mentioned previously there is a duality in the uses of the Context Grid’s products. On one hand, the final user will be browsing the information and on the other hand the company or small business that will use the service to register locations, and products.
We created different personas for final users in retail and b2b clients personas that own local businesses with the intention to understand and create different demos.
Problem Statement
Businesses need to find a wat to add and register accurate locations and micro-locations in space that will display AR information.
The final user needs to be able to browse spatial AR locations and micro-locations with ease.
Conceptualizing
As mentioned previously we needed fast prototyping and examples of use. There are several examples that we wanted to explore, retail, landmarks, history, businesses. We realized that there are no straight forward ways to paper prototype AR experiences with completely free movement of the user. I created a map marker and storyboard to use in outdoor experiences.
High Fidelity Prototyping
As you can see in this video on the left side, when you have to prototype location-based AR there is not a straight forward guideline.
Back in 2017 I made this high fidelity prototype entirely in Unity 3D, as a proof of concept and testing some of the usabilities that ContextGrid brings to the final user and for business clients.
I wanted to explore concepts such as:
AR concierge
Navigation tools
AR paths
Location information
Customized retail discounts
Hazards information
Menus for restaurants
Outcome
ContextGrid is currently fully seeded startup and has successfully launched it's first 2 apps for iOS.
You can visit here ContextGrid website.
Visit Annotator on the apple store. Register data to create persistent Augmented Reality at any exact location on Earth.
Visit HoloJamo on the apple store. HoloJamo is a first of its kind, an internet browser that brings location-specific information straight to you, in the form of augmented reality holograms.