- Copy writer
- Games designer
- Development team
- Creative Director
- Visual Designer
- Producer
- 3D AR Team
Year
2020
My Role
-
- UX Designer
- User Researcher
Disciplines
- UX strategy
- UX design
- Design sprints
- Rapid prototyping
- Moderated usability tests
The virtual AR Daemon that encourages self-care
In His Dark Materials, Daemons are the physical manifestation of a human soul in Lyra’s world. To celebrate the launch of His Dark Materials Season 2 being released, My Daemon is an augmented reality iOS app that allows new and existing fans to discover their very own daemon.
The aim was to create an entertainment iOS and Apple Watch App with wellness benefits. My Daemon brings narrative elements from the show into daily life. Released during the COVID pandemic, My Daemon encourages users to participate in wellness activities that contribute to the overall mind, body, and spirit health.
The Process
What I did
Discovery of the current landspace and audience insights
The whole team focused on doing Desk research on His Dark Materials. Each member of the team had a key focus from copywriting to game mechanics.
My key focus was on Audience insights, Smartwatches wearable, Well being & Fitness apps, shareable content (e.g 360 videos, photos) and AR apps + Filters
I also created personas from the information from HBO about
their audience data, which were used as the screener for participant recruitment.
Using Remote Design Sprints & Value proposition canvas to problem solve and validate fast
The workshop lead to many ideas. Due to the time constraint, the Visual Designer and I could only prototype one design idea. I also help run the user testing sessions with the participants. The feedback was users didn’t understand the value of the app, beyond using it once. So a value proposition workshop was conducted to make the app meet more of its user’s needs.
Storyboarding the experience as a way to communicate the story narrative
AR and game experiences can be difficult to understand by wireframes, so I created hybrid wireframes/story flows to communicate ideas of how the journeys would work. I also supplied documented wireframes with annotations for developers.
The onboarding experience is where users had to complete a personality test to reveal their daemon, I made the experience as close to the storyline since can’t choose your daemon. This went through a few iterations and was tested with a prototype before being handed to the Visual Designer.
Integrating Apple watch into the Wellness app with Health APIs
Mobile AR experiences
Agile testing to speed up first beta release
I set a research plan to test the product at three interval stages during the product implementation. In 3 weeks, the following was completed.
4
Different user groups
15
1 hour moderated interviews
4
Different countries across Europe, UK and North America
Challenges of moderated global testing in a pandemic
I led the Research Ops and sourced participants on Facebook, Reddit and third-party recruitment. Wrote screener and issued the NDAs to the participants ahead of time.
The audience was relatively niche, as the app had to be tested by fans of His Dark Materials books or TV show.
Interview slots had to accommodate for the difference in time zone between US and Europe and UK for participants. They had to be remote due to the pandemic.
Inclusive research for a diverse audience
My user research prioritises inclusivity for a diverse range of participants, including those of different ages (11 to 50’s) and backgrounds. I accommodate special needs by asking ahead of time and adjusting my approach accordingly.
For example, I recently tested a young boy on the autism spectrum who required extra time and prompts, we had his mother’s presence during the same room as him.
Recognitions
2021
WEBBY AWARDS Nominee for Best Experimental & Innovation
2021
WEBBY AWARDS Nominee - Best Visual Design aesthetic.
In just 2 months from launch
50000
Appstore downloads
10,0000
Social media impressions
