yahan105

[yahan105]

Evaluation

It is believed that people who often visit museums and galleries have experienced the situation of children shouting and running in the open and quiet spaces. Weiner (2004) noted that Children under ten years of age experience art in a physical way; they are loud, run in the open spaces, and are curious and interactive. This means that for children, it may be their unique way of participating and experiencing. Most of the user experience that traditional museums and galleries bring to children is lack of interest and interaction. Bennett (1995) considered one of the effective elements of the bad experience of visiting museums for the schoolchildren is that children were a conundrum for early art museums because they were often too young or ‘untutored’ to engage effectively with their pedagogical aims and technologies (of labels and guides).

Today, children's use of mobile App is becoming more and more common. In China, many primary and secondary school courses are required children to participate through mobile App. Some children's proficiency and learning speed for mobile applications often exceeds the middle-aged and older people in a family. Kaye (2017) argued: “Therefore, children's scientific and technological experience will have a significant impact on their future life.” And Augmented reality technology, because of its strong interactive characteristics, has the potential to be widely used in children's life and learning in the future.

A definition given by Ding (2017) of how Augmented Reality effect museum experience is that AR is a mobile technology that is receiving increasing attention from museum professionals, researchers, and educators because of its capacity to increase engagement and add value to the learning experience. Museums facilitate schoolchildren’s experiential learning, and when combined with Augmented Reality (AR) applications, schoolchildren can benefit from interactive, engaging learning experiences. Considering the increased importance of learning as part of the museum experience, how AR can be used in order to create novel, interactive and highly motivational learning environments.

As a designer, I need to think about how to use new digital technology to enhance the experience of the art gallery or exhibition in such an era background. The children as the generation grew up in the digital age which are the group of most sensitive and closely connected to technology is chosen for my target audience.

I define the target audience and potential users of my mobile apps as school children, probably aged between 6 and 14. They are a large number of people who need to learn in museums, galleries and other places. And art education is indispensable for them. Children routinely visit art museums as part of their educational experience and family time. Museums are ideal environments for facilitating children’s experiential learning. Morentin and Guisasola (2015) noted that Museum field trips are consistently integrated into many primary schools’ curriculum because they are considered a powerful learning resource given their recreational and educational potential.

The traditional museum experience is too boring and dull for children of this age range.

Because children of this age are generally active and curious about things, it is difficult for them to receive knowledge calmly and attentively by quiet content. I began to think about how interaction and guidance can make schoolchildren more focused to complete the whole tour.

I added 4 highlights in my App, which are:

01 Colorful interface display: Simple UX guide design, as well as cute UI design which to make the users learn with more fun.

02 AR Narrator: When the user scanning the artworks or exhibits, there will be AR narrator which is a cute 3D avatar to make children feel more interested to better understand artworks. (Optional avatars make users feel more ineractive)

03 Dialog box form: The text narrative is divided into dialogue forms. Make reading easier and smoother

04 Reward system: After browsing the content of an artwork, user will get a small reward in the App, which make users more interested in reading content.

However, after Alpha testing and some feedback from 2 schoolchildren, I also see that my works are full of inadequacies.

Firstly, the design of the characters used as a narrator is too simple, and there is not enough background and story to make it have personality characteristics. The number of characters is enough to have a choice, but still can be more. In the future, the design of characters and the of animation of the characters can be further improved to make them more vivid and lovely.

Secondly, there are only six of the artworks can be successfully recognized and applied by the App. Some school children think that it is better a certain range of works in the exhibition hall could be applied to this App, in order to have a more exploratory sense like a game. There are two reason that I didn’t achieve that: One is the image recognition method of Vuforia could not be well applied to paintings. Another is I was unable to go to the exhibition hall because of the accident, which made it difficult to collect and test the images of artworks.

Another thing sometimes is it can’t be smoothly recognized because the problem of the Vuforia platform itself. There is a way to avoid the recognizing problem which is : When testing, please don't focus to the image directly when open the camera. If recognize fail, please move the camera to focus on other things or block the camera then open the camera and move the focus on the image again.

In the future, I will further improve this work if I have the opportunity. Research on other recognition methods and try to add the three-dimensional recognition of sculpture and other works. Further adding map function makes the whole tour experience more perfect.

Third, the reward system in my application is incomplete. My original idea was to randomly provide different rewards and accumulate them. Cumulative to a certain number of the rewards, there are animations can be generated accordingly. However, due to the urgency of time and lack of technology, it was not achieved in the end. Now the reward system seems too simple and monotonous.

In the future, if there are opportunities, I will further improve my work. The Museum and gallery experience of schoolchildren will be further improved. Maybe I can work with artists, galleries and schools. To further improve the experience of schoolchildren using digital technology (AR, VR and others) for learning and in life. Enlarge as much as possible the interactivity, fun and the corresponding positive effects brought about by digital technology.

Reference & Bibliography:

Bennett, T. (1995) The Birth of the Museu. London: Routledge.

Ding, M. (2017). ‘AugmentedRealityinMuseums.’ ArtsManagement and Technology Laboratory.

KAYE, L. (2016, 2017). Young children in a digital age: supporting learning and development with technology in early years. London: Routledge.

Loïc, T. and Kevin, W. (2008). Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media. Culture-AltaMira Press.

Lynn, D. (1989). ‘The Family Museum Experience: Implications from Research.’ Journal of Museum Education. 14 (2).

Moorhouse, N., tom Dieck, M.C. & Jung, T. (2019). ‘An experiential view to children learning in museums with Augmented Reality’. Museum Management and Curatorship.

Morentin, M., and J. Guisasola. (2015). ‘The Role of Science Museum Field Trips in the Primary Teacher Preparation.’ International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 13 (5).

Moorhouse, N., tom Dieck, M.C. & Jung, T. (2019). ‘An experiential view to children learning in museums with Augmented Reality’. Museum Management and Curatorship.

Lai, C. H., J. C. Yang, C. F. Chen, C. W. Ho, W. T. Chan, and J. S. Liang. (2009). ‘Mobile Technology Supported Experiential Learning.’ International Journal of Instructional Media 36 (1).

Lee, H., M. Billinghurst, and W. Woo. (2011). ‘Two-handed Tangible Interaction Techniques for Composing Augmented Blocks.’ Virtual Reality 15 (2).

Piscitelli, D., and D. Anderson. 2001. ‘Young Children’s Perspectives of Museum Settings and Experiences.’ Museum Management and Curatorship 19 (3).

Sungkur, R.K., A. Panchoo and N.K. Bhoyroo. (2016). ‘Augmented Reality, the Future of Contextual Mobile Learning.’ Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 13(2).

Weiner, K. (2004) ‘Empowering Young Children In Art Museums: letting them take the lead’. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. 5 (1) 106-116.

[yahan105]

List of third party materials

Artwork

KING, P. (1991). Composition. [Oil stick and ink wash on paper]. Arts Collection, UH, London.

KING, P. (1995). Composition. [Oil stick and ink wash on paper]. Arts Collection, UH, London.

PARISH, S. (2005). Bike Lights/ Khao San Road. [Oil on canvas]. Arts Collection, UH, London.

YARNELL, P. (2010). Untitled I & II. [Acrylic on pine planks]. Arts Collection, UH, London.

Code

Blog. CSDN. (2018). ‘基于Unity~UGUI的简单UI框架（附UIFramework源码）’. [Online]. May 5th, 2019. Available from: https://blog.csdn.net/qq_34937637/article/details/80374387

Blog. CSDN. (2017). ‘Unity透明视频播放 所需的Shader脚本’. [Online]. May 3th, 2019. Available from: https://blog.csdn.net/chuan403082010/article/details/76723894

Blog. CSDN. (2015). ‘Ugui游戏开始界面 设置界面弹出’. [Online]. May 6th, 2019. Available from: https://blog.csdn.net/haifeng619/article/details/42554429

Blog. jianshu. (2017). ‘Unity3D UGUI与2D游戏（项目）UI框架’. [Online]. May 6th, 2019. Available from: https://www.jianshu.com/p/875bc28fa384

Blog. xuanyusong. (2014). ‘Unity3D研究院之Android全自动打包生成apk’. [Online]. May 9th, 2019. Available from: http://www.xuanyusong.com/archives/2748

Font

Software

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustration

3D Max

Unity 3D

Vuforia

[yahan105]

Alpha Test

https://youtu.be/gL77p-oaloo

[yahan105]

Similar App 06

https://youtu.be/v9StZg6NfJg

It's an interesting platform for working with artists to develop augmented reality animation to show artworks. Using this platform, artists can recreate their own artworks. All planar and static artworks that want to convey and further meaning of them can be accomplished through it.

This kind of production also makes the audience feel the interaction with the artworks as to better understand the ideas of the artworks and artists. There are artists who directly re-create which can further retain the ownership of artistic creation and the direct transmission of the original intention. It's a good App to make audiences and artists communicate more

[yahan105]

Publish the App

Download and install JDK, configure JDK environment

Set up SDK

Sets up the configuration and distribution of JDK and SDK in Unity

[yahan105]

Animate the menu in Unity

Creating left-to-right UI animations using Animator

[yahan105]

First testing

https://youtu.be/bPwQw4olTjU

[yahan105]

Similar App 05

https://youtu.be/mdvVDXpZxqo

This is another AR App of displaying animation after recognizing artworks. It could be seen that the production of these animations is very exquisite and showing a very good performance of the artistic conception that the works of art itself want to convey.

In the video, a little girl who looks like a schoolchild has been interviewed as a user. She responded well to this AR experience. The exquisite animation makes her more interested in these artworks and greatly improves the whole exhibition experience.

[yahan105]

Scripts

Scripts

https://youtu.be/X08LHuSypj0

Start for the first interface, start button

Display hiding based on hierarchical information of UI

Role Selection Button

Hide all roles

Display the selected role

Camera Button, Start Recognition

Initialize UI

Introduction page

Open the introduction panel

Last step interface

Next step interface

End interface

[yahan105]

Setting the App with UGUI

UGUI is used to build the whole UI interface. The whole code is designed with the idea of encapsulation. (changing the script code which downloaded online) Each method is an independent function and can complete an operation independently.

https://youtu.be/xeM0EqTM6MU

All UGUI controls, such as buttons, are placed on canvas. In Hierarchy, button, image and other controls are sub-objects of Canvas.

Clicking Create - UI - Button in Hierarchy will generate a Button under Canvas. The Button has an image component and a Button component. Changing the Source Image of the Image component can change the appearance of the Button. And I need to choose my UI image for it.

[yahan105]

Similar App 04

https://youtu.be/s0QfpfGOrp8

The biggest feature of this App is that it is an actual guide application. It includes the functions of locating, navigation, scanning QR code and displaying information. Formally, it is not as interesting and interactive as other Apps. But the it is functional.

In my App, I also considered using GPS system to show the map and locating. But the feasibility of indoor locating is not very good. (At most, it can only show the location of the user and the location of the artwork.) So I gave up this function. But in the future, if there is an opportunity to apply this to outdoor travel experience, I can try to add map and location functions and add some task-based game experience to make it more fun.

[yahan105]

UI Design & Branding

Advertising

LOGO

Colour style

Background

UI elements

[yahan105]

The Problem of Recognizing Images of Paintings

Due to I am in China, I let my friend help me to get the images of the UH Arts collections for me to use in Vuforia. But most of the images only rate for 1 star or less. I emailed the UH Arts asking for some hires images of the collection but didn’t got a good reply. Then I told my friend to collect the images with pro camera again. However, it failed again.

Then I found the reason why they couldn’t be recognized is that the strokes in paintings are not sharp or distinct rounded corners. This makes it difficult to recognize. Finally I chose six relatively recognizable images as my final App painting.

The images of the paintings in the campus

Only 3 images can be recognized

The reply of UH Arts

The reason of the failure

Final 6 images

[yahan105]

Similar App 03

https://youtu.be/i0nL8gWblBM

The main function of this App is to recognize the planar logo (possibly part of the artwork) and then pop up a 3D sculpture on the screen with a rotating animation. In fact, it may still be the exhibition itself, but it increases the interaction between visitors and artworks.

It is also worth mentioning that in this App, clicking on the arrow on the right will bring up a menu to show more information about the artwork. This is similar to my App. The menu I designed in my App will also show the name, artist and location of the recognizable artwork.

[yahan105]

Animating and Testing

Bone bonding and skinning

Animating

https://youtu.be/WO24p3-pezE

https://youtu.be/4szBGK5HRoU

Testing in Unity

[yahan105]

Character Design

Sketch

3D Modeling in 3D max

[yahan105]

User Experience: Scenarios

01 Hannah opened the app. First came the welcome page, which stayed for a few seconds before reaching the next interface. The interface shows that Hannah need to choose a guide to explain the artwork. Hannah chose Mimi, the more cute-looking Unicorn duck character. After the selection, Mimi's name was framed. Hannah pressed down the camera icon to prepare for the next recognize of image of the artwork. The distance and angle of the recognizing were a bit tricky. Hannah changed several positions and successfully recognized the artwork. There is a dialog box of the Mimi pop-up with art profile information on the mobile phone interface. Hannah chose to press the GO button. The information in the dialog box becomes an introduction to the art background, story and more information. Hannah finished browsing all the information, and a small rotating rainbow appeared in the dialog box as a reward for Hannah. Hannah felt very happy. Click the Home button to start recognizing the next artwork.

02 Allen opened the App and saw the colorful and lovely welcome page. A few seconds later the next interface appeared. Allen chose a role Kiki which is a silly looking Unicorn with golden wings to guide and explain the artwork. When selected, Allen pressed the camera button. There was popping up a dialog box with a brief description of the painting and Kiki's welcome. Allen clicked on the GO button of the dialog box and flipped the flip-back button to read the details of the painting. After browsing all the content, Allen was awarded a small rainbow. He wanted to find out where the next painting was, so he clicked on the menu button. When Allen saw the next painting in another building, he set out for the next place.