Role: UX and Interaction Designer.
Art Realm merges a digital scavenger hunt with a collection of exclusive art pieces at select museums. Available on mobile and spatial computing platforms, the app fosters art education via augmented reality, partnering with museums to encourage visits and ticket purchases for special events. It adds a social layer, allowing users to share art finds and visits, and an educational angle for discovering global art, artists, and museums. Art Realm also supports AR art creators by enabling art discovery and home space decoration with AR. The app allows free access to interactive and immersive artworks, with certain exclusive pieces available through a subscription model, encouraging ongoing engagement and supporting the generation of digital art experiences.
Learning
For my graduate project at the Royal College of Art, I was interested in pushing my practice in designing for spatial computing. Creating an Apple Vision Pro app before the device was actually available required a great deal of speculation about the headset’s functionalities, but it also sparked a creative exploration of potential user-centric experiences and interactions. After the device’s release, the focus shifted towards understanding how users from different demographics engage with the platform, particularly targeting the 25-60 age group. User testing revealed a clear preference for content-driven interactions, such as movies, augmented reality experiences, and games, which helped me validate the project’s direction of offering interactive art experiences, aligning it with audience expectations and interests.
Ideation
Inspired by Snapchat’s and Acute Art’s partnerships with artists, Apple’s [AR]T Walk Sessions, and sites like Google Arts & Culture, Art Realm aims to be a central platform that unites art in augmented reality with educational content. The project encourages visits to physical museum locations to unlock unique AR experiences, offering an engaging and educational way for users to interact with art across both digital and physical realms.
Sketches & Wireframes
The ideation phase seamlessly transitioned into sketching concepts for both iOS and VisionOS platforms. I began by exploring how the user interface and interactions would differ between the two, considering the unique strengths of each platform. From these initial sketches, I moved on to creating detailed wireframes for both iOS and VisionOS, ensuring each design catered to the specific needs and capabilities of the devices. This process allowed me to refine the user flow and interactions, optimizing the experience for users on each platform while maintaining a consistent design language across both.
AR Experimentation
AR experiences were prototyped for popular artworks, utilizing Snap AR Studio for René Magritte’s The Son of Man, AR-Code for Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat and Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Adobe After Effects to overlay Van Gogh’s The Starry Night sky onto the Downtown Los Angeles skyline.
Prototyping
Exploration
Using Figma, the interface was designed for both iOS and visionOS, focusing on bringing art and educational opportunities directly to users through spatial computing.
Art Realm is unveiled through a series of dynamic pages, each meticulously crafted to enrich the user’s interaction with the art world:
Home Tab
A vibrant feed showcasing artworks shared by artists, and institutions and collected by your friends. Engage in art discussions and immerse yourself in a community that deeply values the creative world.
Art Realm’s Home tab in VisionOS
Discover Tab
Dive into a world of art and artists spanning cultures and periods. Enjoy a variety of immersive experiences at no cost, and unlock all with exclusive access available to subscribers. It's an invitation to explore art in unparalleled ways.
Art Realm’s Discover tab in VisionOS
Quest Tab
Discover partner institutions worldwide that house exclusive digital art treasures to collect. Be inspired to visit new museums and seamlessly purchase tickets directly through the app.
Art Realm’s Quest tab in VisionOS
Gallery Tab
Transform your space into a personal virtual museum, curating your favorite and collected artworks for viewing anytime.
Art Realm’s Gallery tab in VisionOS
This feature extends beyond simple viewing, enabling you to integrate art into your personal environment. Dive deep into the stories behind each artwork, learn about the artists, and discover the museums where these pieces are housed, broadening your knowledge and connection to the art world. Select artworks come alive with immersive mixed-reality experiences, you'll discover new insights and enjoy art like never before.
Position artworks in your space and learn more about them
Art Realm redefines the art experience, leveraging spatial computing to bring art into users’ lives in unprecedented ways. It represents a shift towards immersive digital engagement, going beyond traditional mobile AR experiences. As an exploration of innovative interaction design, Art Realm embodies the potential to transform how art is consumed, understood, and integrated into daily life. This project marks a significant step forward in the fusion of technology, art, and education, offering users new, dynamic ways to engage with art and deepen their learning experiences.
The companion mobile app allows users to capture artworks when visiting museums and access Art Realm on the go.