We talked about how the collision of augmented reality (AR) technology and user experience design (UX) that brought Andre and Chance together in EPISODE 1! So what did a computer science techie and a creative UX designer decide to do? They decided to start AR.T as a result of a Capstone Project at MacEwan University!
In Episode 2 we focus on how Andre and Chance applied AR and UX to build a minimally viable product for an upcoming beta launch of their App! This App allows art lovers to try out art from retail galleries and museums to view virtually as wall art sized through their App to display the actual size – as it would show up in real life, and with high quality imaging to display the actual art colours.
Stay tuned for Episode 3 on what’s next for them!
Chance’s Blog
The app works is a user receives a target image, a letter-size piece of paper with a pattern from our app, website, or directly from a gallery. Take the target image and place it on the surface you wish to preview the painting. Then in the App, you select the artwork you want to view and scan the target image. Once scanned, the App will ask you to place art – after that, the art should be viewable using your phone on top of the target image on the wall. From there, you can swap out paintings and move them along the surface to find the right area and fit for it. Then the user can press the shopping cart button and be transported to the galleries Shopify page to purchase the artwork if you like it.
My role in the company is to create wireframes for new pages, assets both 2D and 3D for the app, and testing to make things user-friendly. The design goal for the App is to simplify the process of viewing a painting as much as possible, sticking with the idea that if you have to think about what you’re doing on the app, it can be optimized better. We pride ourselves that all of our AR elements are too size and scale with the original paintings with the ability to adjust where the image is on the wall and fully adjust what picture you are viewing without leaving the AR camera screen.
About Andre Driedger
Andre graduated from MacEwan University in 2020 with a BSc in Computer Science as a Full Stack developer. His specialization is in AR and Computer Vision applications.
About Chance Galay
Chance is currently working on his bachelor’s of design at Grant MacEwan. He specializes in user experience and user interface design and loves working with new technology. He is the lead designer on AR.T testing and making sure the app is user-friendly and creating 2D and 3D assets when needed.
About AR.T
Andre and Chance are currently developing a public beta version of the app in collaboration with the Scott Gallery in Edmonton. Target launch is Spring 2021 After the public beta stage, they intend on expanding to Western Canada, offering the AR.T technology product to art galleries and museums.
