Pocket Pets AR

Case Study

Background

Pocket Pets is an AR application designed for mobile devices. I designed the app to allow its users to bring a digital version of their pets with them while away from home. The app would use AI to make AR versions of pets act and sound like the real pet.

Identify

Before designs could be started I started identifying the users, their goals, and their issues. At first, the goal was to not only have a digital version of our pet but also allow veterinarians to contact the user when needed. This secondary Idea fell out of scope.

While interviewing potential users I found that an app to preserve the memories and habits of a user's pet would be invaluable. I many users also wanted the ability to interact with their pets digitally.

Research

When beginning my research I sought out apps with very similar purposes and I found none. There were apps that had digital fictional pets but none that allowed the user to bring their pet to a digital space.

Competing apps that I found had AR capabilities and similar features I was looking for were Pokemon GO! and the app House of the Dragon: DracARys. Both of the apps had fictional animals and could not scan animals or show any behavior or personality to the animals.

Design

When I started designing I knew I wanted to have an easy way to access several pets so I designed the home page with easy access to the user's saved pets. I then built from there creating the user flow of digitizing a new pet which included scans of the animal, voice recordings, personality traits, and enjoyed activities. This onboarding information for the animal would allow AI to recreate how the pet acts in the digital space.

I then started work on pet pages which showed general information about the animal. Through that, the user could go into AR for that pet and interact with them. While designing the AR screens I struggled with which functions users would like to do with their pet and how to show that through iconography. I solved this solution by narrowing down the important parts of having a pet: playing, petting, and feeding. So I designed a small menu that allows user access to those actions.

User Testing & End

At the end of the project, I conducted the first round of user tests. With only a few technical difficulties I received feedback that allowed me to reiterate a more user-friendly UI and fix some prototyping issues.

In the second and final round of user tests, I received better feedback, and many users enjoyed the prototype. Some participants pointed out some inconsistencies in the UI so I solved the issues before ending the project.