AR Content Initiative
Meta x BBC x Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore x StoryFutures x UNIT9 | 2023
Meta Filters BBC Filters MAP Filter
AR Content Initiative
Overview
Project
I worked with Meta, BBC Studios, and the Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore to strategize and facilitate the design of five interactive AR effects. The effects served as part of a wider research initiative looking into the effectiveness of AR as a learning tool.
Team
Executive Producers: Richard Loader & Manuela MesrieCreative Director: Hannah Neil
Creative Director: Randa Dibaje
Creative Director: Binqin Yang
Design Strategist: Hannah Seckendorf
Junior Design Strategist: Magda Domagała
Audience & Brand Research
Workshop Design
Workshop Facilitation
Design Strategy
Creative Strategy
Background
The Problem
AR effects are predominantly associated with brand marketing campaigns rather than as a prospective tool to aid learning.
The Idea
Meta dreamt up an AR Content Initiative with a commitment to harnessing the educational potential of AR and debunking the cultural stereotype of AR as simply a vehicle for make-up try on videos.
The Ask
UNIT9 was tasked with collaborating with both Meta and select partners – BBC Studios and the Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore – to envision, design, and produce a series of innovative and interactive AR learning experiences that could be used to investigate the effectiveness of AR as an educational medium via a wider research initiative.
Approach
Proposing a Research Plan
Before kicking off with the client, I began by drafting and presenting a proposal for a research approach that would allow us to collaborate with StoryFutures and be best positioned to get good data on how our filters were received by our target audiences both as we were building and after we had launched them into the wild. How engaging was each filter? Which was the most effectively educational?
Insight Gathering
After presenting the proposal to the Meta team and getting the stamp of the approval following a couple rounds of iteration, we were well positioned to properly kick off our own preliminary research into AR and education. Ahead of launching into stakeholder interviews and workshop design, I surveyed the existing landscape of attempts at educational AR. What’s been done? What’s working and where are things falling short? What are the key technical strengths and weaknesses of Meta Spark (Meta’s AR creator platform, where we would be building the filters). What would appeal most to each organization’s specific audiences? These insights would be interwoven into the design and broader context of the withorkshops, such that our collective decision making could be informed decision making.
Stakeholder Interviews
The Meta Immersive Learning Team was well positioned to answer a variety of questions on the subject of educational AR. Likewise, both the BBC Interactive Team and Museum of Art and Photography team had their own subject matter expertise to bring to the table. Beyond contributing to my sense of what we needed to pay attention to in the design of our filters, all interviewees were contributing to my Requirements Gathering, which would ultimately shape my understanding of the distinct goals each stakeholder withould be bringing to the workshop table, and form a blueprint of succcess for our designers, developers, and producers.
Workshop Design
After completing my research, synthesizing my insights, and gathering our requirements, it was time to kickoff workshop design, AKA translating the needs of the client into a highly-structured large group session of knowledge-sharing, ideation, and decision-making. Two were to be hosted remote, via Miro, while our workshop with the BBC we’d host in our London UNIT9 office.
At the core of each workshop was a three-part goal:
1) to align a large, diverse group of stakeholders around an agreed-upon goal: a north star articulated in shared language that everyone could look to to orient their decision-making throughout the session
2) to inspire and facilitate the group towards efficiently generating a collection of creative ideas we were excited about, proud of, and that were informed by what would appeal most to their specific audiences within the technical constraints of the medium
3) to come to consensus on 10 key creative concepts we were excited to take forward into further creative refinement
Workshop Facilitation
I hosted three distinct workshops to explore the opportunities and use cases for AR within each organisation: first with Meta alone, followed by Meta x BBC, and finally Meta x MAP.
While the design of each workshop was completely distinct to needs of each organizations present, the core structure of the workshops followed an adaptation and abbreviation of the traditional Design Sprint:
I. Introduction: Thoughtfully introducing everyone in the room via playful icebreakers, establishing the house rules, and defining the roles each of us would be playing in the gathering.
II. Alignmnent: Using a structured exercise to align as a group on a very-brief creative brief.
III. Inspiration: Sharing best practices and best-in-class examples of immersive educational experiences, so we have excitement to draw from and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel in ideation.
IV: Ideation: Using structured exercises to get creative and generate lots of rapid fire ideas.
V: Decision-Making: Using structured exercises to make hard decisions as a group.
VI: Wrap Up: Taking a beat to offer anyone an opportunity to share what might not have had space throughout the session.
Strategic
Rather than simply hand off workshop insights to our creative team, I made sure UNIT9 Creatives were present in the workshop and ensured that I was available down the line to feedback on any creative decision making that needed strategic steering.
For BBC Studios, we used AR to connect audiences with a variety of wildlife and ecosystems in a fun and engaging way. We focused on a series of effects centred around Natural History and the environment: from growing a Ginkgo tree and discovering its life cycle, to diving into the ocean to meet creatures of the deep and restore a coral reef, the
For the Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore, we explored how art could be brought to life through AR. Users are able to help complete paintings by adding brushstrokes, assemble a tapestry via a jigsaw puzzle, and go behind-the-scenes at an Indian Shadow Puppet show to see how the artform takes shape.
We also explored a series of effects specifically for Meta – from teaching users about the relationship between altitude and velocity when launching a Satellite into space, to transporting them to a Victorian highstreet to learn about life in the 1800s.
Testing
Within each workstream, we collaborated with StoryFutures to trial the AR effects amongst focus groups of 20-30 participants in order to achieve maximum engagement. These sessions allowed us to test ideas including different UX flows and approaches to providing information (such as the effectiveness of voiceover vs text) as well as gauge the impact of newer, more experimental Meta Spark features such as hand-tracking and real-world scaling.
Outcome
The Filters
The effects were commissioned for production before being launched on Instagram and other Partner-owned channels, as well as the Meta Spark Hub.
With a thorough ideation, development, and testing process and close collaboration with Meta, BBC Studios, and the Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore, we were able to create a series of educational AR effects that audiences could truly connect with. It was incredible to push the boundaries of AR to lengths we haven’t seen before, creating full-blown immersive educational experiences – all accessible from a phone screen.
Research Findings
Through our collaboration with StoryFutures, we were able to gain insight into which of our filters were most engaging, memorable, and successfully educational.