Faire: Beyond the Page…fun!
“Beyond the Page” is a print catalog for showcasing and shopping products available on Faire through the use of AR. Our team concepted, designed, printed, and developed a print catalog with companion AR experience to allow retailer’s a familiar way to browse products available on Faire and purchase these products through the use of AR and image recognition on their mobile device.
My role: UX lead, AR Developer Lead
Output: Fully designed 60-page printed catalog iOS prototype demonstrating companion AR Experience.
Duration: 2 weeks
Through our research, we knew that retailers on Faire were accustomed to browsing and purchasing wholesale products for their stores offline via catalogs, sales representatives, and trade shows. At Faire, we had created an entirely digital model to replace this offline paradigm, one which required retailers to significantly adjust their behavior patterns when it came to purchasing wholesale products for their stores. We saw that we had an opportunity, as we brought more retailers onto Faire, to use technology to bridge the offline and online experience.
Context
Volume 01 - The Minimalist Issue
We designed a print catalog that would map to the current mental model of physically browsing and shopping for items, with Faire’s digital platform that would allow them to follow-through and purchase the item. The connective tissue that bridged these two experiences (the physical and the digital) lay in the hands of augmented reality. A retailer would be able to browse the print catalog and, upon seeing an item of interest, hover over the image of the item with their phone and see information related to that item. Tapping on this would summon and display the product detail page from where the user could then add the item to his or her cart, or dismiss and continue browsing, thus bringing the experience full circle.
The Solution
To effectively demonstrate and convey the power of our idea to our stakeholders, we knew we couldn’t just rely on words and our audience’s imagination. We would need to create a functioning prototype that people could experience in their hands to fully convey the power of the idea.
I looked to Unity to craft a prototype capable of recognizing a select set of images from within our printed catalog. Once the image recognition piece was functioning, and the system capable of surfacing information I had tethered to each image, I made the content interactable. Tapping on any surfaced piece of information would take the user to the product detail page of that item.
The experience demonstrated by the prototype was enough to convey the intent of the design and generate buy in. We were given the green light.
The AR Prototype
Final Designs