As Dr. Brand says in Interstellar, "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space."
With our VR experience, we hope to give people the ability to do just that - to connect with the moments that have shaped their lives, no matter where or when they may be.
In order to reduce modern social isolation, the experience reestablishes social connections through immersive virtual universe, bringing people back to their memories that shaped their life and connecting people with their loved ones.
Results
Design Process
Objective
The product connects people with their past by offering a virtual reality experience that simulates the sights, sounds, and culture of their memories. Users can explore different places in VR, visit familiar rooms, and connect with their past. This creates a sense of community and connection for those who miss their past and provides a way to experience and connect with their cultural heritage in a new way.
Based on our researches, we found that the reason, why people tend to eat food from their cultural background and share food with their closet ones, is that individuals tend to develop a sense of closeness towards others who consume the same type of food. This sense of closeness leads to trust, cooperation and ultimately a connection between individuals.
Social connectedness is a fundamental aspect of human nature and plays a crucial role in our physical, emotional, and social well-being. It is important to cultivate and maintain strong social connections throughout our lives in order to live happy, healthy, and fulfilling lives.
Our goal is to facilitate the reestablishment of social connections for such individuals through the use of immersive virtual experiences.
Challenges
- The project aims to address the pain points of individuals who miss their hometowns and cultural backgrounds, and may struggle to maintain social connections as a result.
- The lack of physical proximity to loved ones and familiar surroundings can cause feelings of isolation and disconnection, which can impact emotional well-being.
Solutions
- By bringing people back to the environments hold their memories and letting them interact with friends and families that currently not around with them, the project contributes to improving emotional, social, and overall well-being of individuals who feel disconnected from their cultural roots and communities,
- The project aims to create an inclusive experience for our users with spatial.io. This platform offers accessibility from various devices, including VR, desktop, tablet, and mobile, allowing users to engage with the product on their preferred device, allowing individuals to engage regardless of their access to technology.
Concept Scenarios
Based on researches and our mission, "Connecting loved ones across borders, through the familiar comfort of their family home". I created a background story for our project to help demonstrate the experience.
<Virtual Reality for Plants that Generate Power>
Within a city that has yet to materialize, one can find a structure of this kind in every metropolis. It consists of numerous studio rooms that are dedicated to cultivating plants, which are utilized to generate power through fermentation. As a result, the entire building functions as a massive green power station that provides energy to the entire city. The plants are nourished by pots that provide them with soil and nutrients, while LED ceiling lights supply them with the necessary illumination. It is crucial that the plants remain alive within this system. However, this requires them to remain confined to their respective rooms, as they cannot be moved elsewhere.
In order to ensure that the plants receive the appropriate care, their self-awareness is connected to cloud computing technology, which provides a virtual reality experience for the plants. Through this virtual reality, the plants can travel from this concrete city, which it doesn't belong, to their natural habitat, where they can reunite with their families and friends, who live in a pristine environment untouched by pollution.
I used DALL E to generate the image that tells my story.
Final touches in Photoshop to get the story I wanted to tell.
Researches
City of Experience: Cultural Food Experiences in Toronto
Primary Research
Secondary Research
Insights
- People Prefer familiarity
People prefer to eat foods from their cultural background, or foods that have similarities with foods from their cultural background, because it shares similar ingredients, flavours, and/or textures. Complete foreign foods can be enjoyed occasionally but not daily.
- Cultural Identity Serves Capital
Business owners are more likely to open up a restaurant of their own culture within their own communities, because it’s easier and less risky. Furthermore, customers like eating within their own community because the food is more authentic, and there is less risk of having a bad experience.
There are two sides of this statement. It can be positive or negative, depending on the viewer’s perspective. For small businesses owners, it is easier to start within their communities. For customers, businesses owners are using their cultural identity to make money. Customers enjoy meals, while businesses owners make a living. This explains why Toronto has different cultural regions such as Chinatown, Korean town, little Italy, etc. The communities bring cultural restaurants, and restaurants grow community.
Concept Development
To translate the research from our timeline into concept that represent the insights, stories and themes that have emerged.
Researching for the concept: CONNECT
CONNECT brand identity
Initial Idea
Prototype
Creating a experience for users to immerse themselves in different places using SparkAR.
Using Unreal Engine 5 to create a 3D environment which closely replicated this photosphere for projection onto the wall.
Creating a video to tell the story of our experience.
Iteration
After presenting the prototype, based on feedbacks, we made an iteration. Switch to the platform called spatial.io for inclusivity. This platform offers accessibility from various devices, including VR, desktop, tablet, and mobile, allowing users to engage with the product on their preferred device. Also adjusted our brand identity. To design in VR, we started from UX researches.
UX&UI
User Flow
UX Sketches
UI Kit
Developing
Preparing the 3D scene with the cultural elements, representing where does our hero came from.
Preparing the 3D scene, representing the "current environment" with the tone of futuristic and Zen space.
Exporting 3D scene from Blender to Unity. Adding interactions, preparing lightmaps for later uploading to Spatial.
Testing in VR, desktop, and mobile.
Uploading to Spatial.
Adding a space dedicating for playing and experiencing with VR interactions, such as drawing in 3D space.
Visuals
Exhibition Design
Sketch and plan
3D Visualization and marketing
Behind the scene
