Gravity Sketch

VR Edutainment

Challenge:
Create an immersive virtual world in GS that could inspire more designers/artists to explore 3D collaboration. (Gravity Sketch is an intuitive 3D design platform for cross-disciplinary teams to create, collaborate, and review in an entirely new way.)

Solution:
‍Build a virtual Mars adventure beyond entertainment to obtain countless people stuck on Earth a chance to glimpse space.
Glimpse of the VR Mars 🚀
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Outcome:
Researching and analyzing VR Mars tourism needs, setting timeline tasks, and facilitating the final 3D visual.
Weekly standups: discussed with the team to understand and balance the ideas of transportation and buildings and apply prerequisite features to the final project; proposed and scoped the feasibility of design with program managers and GS experts to improve the UX design functions of the GS community.
Final deliver: 3D prototypes in GS; an ultimate VR showroom in Metaverse Spatial for global viewing even including those without headsets.
Spatial Showroom 🛸
‍‍

Play, Think, Create, Be in 3D.
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My Role

Team

Duration

Lead project
VR research & strategy
3D prototypes
Metaverse Spatial modeling

4 Industrial Designers
1 Architect
2 Product Designers
1 Product Manager
2 Engineers

3.5 Months, 2022

Speech In GS with Headsets 🔗 (5 Minutes)

Metaverse Spatial Demo 🔗 (2 Minutes)

00-1

Process

00-2

qualitative
research

I conduct 5 interviews would love to travel to Mars to find out their worries, needs, and most expectation.
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Amazing technology can't make the world a better place unless we think human first.
Many of VR areas fall into the category ‘Edutainment’ in which the aim is to educate as well as entertain.

I exchanged ideas with team and finally we decided that the project theme revolved around education and entertainment - virtual life on Mars.

Interview Scripts:
- Who do you want to go Mars with? Solo? How long?
- What do you imagine Mars to be like?
- What do you want to do when you're in the cabin?
- What activities you most want to explore?
- What you worriy about if leave Earth for a long time?
- What would you most like to do in space if have magic?

Love Playful Learning

4/6 intervees want the virtual trip are not just for entertainment, it can also be a better educational experience which make them excited..

Happy To Share

Seamlessly sharing what I've saw and experiences on virtual Mars with friends and family who without wear headsets or not have headsets.

Smooth Network Experience

Delay can be emotionally draining and confusing. They want to have a smooth and enjoyable experience when using the headset.

Easily Obtain Health Status

100% interviews mentioned they want to go with family or partner and easily access their real-time body conditions or health status.

Space Social Activity

5/6 interviews want to meet more new friends during specific virtual space tourism full of high technology.

Worry About Accidents

Even on a virtual trip, they'll want to know what peculiar changes or features their bodies have on Mars.

00-3

&

Persona

User Journey

Nita

Age:
Occupation:
Travel With:
Location:
Hobbies:
Personality:

21
Artist
Partner & Cat
Chicago, Ill
Illustrations
Imaginative, extroverted, energetic, proactive

Karen

Age:
Occupation:
Travel With:
Location:
Hobbies:
Personality:

39
Entrepreneur
Solo
Columbia, NY
Jewelry, travel, yoga
Independent, glamorous, polite, brave, talkative

Andy

Age:
Occupation:
Travel With:
Location:
Hobbies:
Personality:

29
Aviator
Wife & Child
California, CA
Tennis, pasta, crypto
Adventurous, organized, social, optimistic, calm

Awareness

Research & Booking

Spaceship to Mars

Experience on Mars

Back Home

User Actions

Emotions & User needs

Person Nita - User Journey

00-4

quantitive
Research

Awareness

Research & Booking

Spaceship to Mars

Experience on Mars

Back Home

User Experience Opportunities

synthesis

I assumed users those eager the VR space travel will be more focused on learning something new. But research shows that users want to first enjoy relax and high-tech entertainment that can't experience in earth. After opinion poll, I have identified 4 priority design directions: galaxy interaction; space station meditation; AI chatbot & monitor; spaceship club.

Possible opportunities

Selected experiences

Most Popular

00-5

definition

「User Worry」

Not surprises enough.
Not stunning detail and realism enough.

「Project Goal」

Make this a once-in-a-lifetime experience like a adventure portal in the game.

「User Needs」

- An unprecedented virtual experience
- Contagious and delicate emotional details
- Creative scene stories beyond imagination
- Impactful and memorable interactive results

「Our Solutions」

Create changing theme scenes such as interactive Galaxy education, Mars responsibility training, and future intelligent environment. Enhance the transition to immersive VR experiences by integrating user journey exploration, defining in-depth virtual tour goal definitions.

Inspirations Gallery

00-6

Ideations

Created user stories to help visualize parts of detailed VR Mars opportunities.
Actively built 3D decks for team presentation in GS which seamlessly connected weekly conference and design concept demonstration iterations. Achieve a smooth and iterated presentation.
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Listend and discussed with teammates then decide how to apply UX to promote their design features and our team themes of 3D industrial design (including spaceships and functional buildings).
Incorporated a unified concept into our final delivery. Delieved a 3D innovative gamed experience and built Metaverse Spatial room for team.

00-7

&

Prototype

3D scene
construction

[ Meet Kindred Spirit ]

education
‍VR Club

3D galaxy education provides a more intuitive and interesting way of learning from interaction. Users can easily access and discover amazing stories and visual data of planets right at home.

Stimulate user participation and motivation through multidimensional communicating ideas, team accomplishing goals, and knowing kindred spirit in this virtual world.

[ Share With others ]

LOVE

AI plants

cultivation

Plant cultivation on Mars helps build awareness of protecting space ecosystems. Gift fantastic seeds to others could enhance social connections.

Surrounding plants help users feel more calm and less anxious.
On the other hand, fantasy activities enhance users' curiosity about the virtual world.

[ AI Plants Tracker ]

Record
Your Dream

3D galaxy education provides a more intuitive and interesting way of learning from interaction. Users can easily access and discover amazing stories and visual data of planets right at home.

Stimulate user participation and motivation through multidimensional communicating ideas, team accomplishing goals, and knowing kindred spirit in this virtual world.

[ AI Chatbots ]

anthropomorphic
‍voice assistant

Anthropomorphic chatbots assistant eliminates people's strangeness and provides a more personalized and convenient life on Mars. It will kindly ask you if you need to taste the food that only Martian dishes can offer on a picnic.

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[ Focus On Present]

Spacewalk
Meditation

[ Pilots Perspective ]

spaceship dashboard

00-8

Evaluate

Once we were done with the initial 3D world and the 3D prototype, it was time to see how they would play out with people. I invited users who were willing to take part in our VR testing. Record and study testers' impressions of our virtual trip to Mars.

Challenging: Only 2/5 participants had VR experience.
So I explained to each user how to use Oculus Hubs to control Gravity Sketch before starting the test. The way is by teaching them to enlarge and shrink the space by stretching it several times until they get used to the size and direction of the virtual space structure. Other hand, I encourage participants to conduct virtual experiences of each link in the disorder and output their feelings loudly. I will also systematically record their feedback and each room's interactive time.

Learning from testing:
The participants spent a relatively long time playing with the intelligent voice service, multi-person learning mode, and fantasy plant browsing.
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Surprisingly, 5/5 of the testers all mentioned that they want to experience the fantasy plants more deeply. They found it a fun, valuable, and empowering experience. This helped our team capture potential success factors of the project to improve the virtual user experience.

In addition, it was found that all testers did not experience a feeling of the shuttle. Indeed, one keyframe for quick transitions is missing in these few scenes due to technical limitations. In the later stage, I talked with the Gravity Sketch expert team about the possibility of realizing the experience effect of the virtual special session.

Public presentation of team proposals at the Art University Cannery. Inspire industry designers/artists to expand Gravity Sketch's community of 3D model creators.

Next step:
1. External: Develop a short test questionnaire. Bring more users into the virtual world and get measurable quantitative feedback.
2. Internal: Research and analyze how other 3D software realizes the effect experience of instant portals. Help to improve the creating experience and efficiency of Gravity Sketch's internal software.

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Contacted Me

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