AN IMMERSIVE EXPLORATION OF HISTORY BASED ON LOCATION PROFILES, ALLOWING PLAYERS TO LEARN AND ENGAGE IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL HISTORY.
Background
Program: ArtCenter at Night (ArtCenter College of Design—Pasadena, CA)
Course: The Art of UI
Contributors: Leigh Phan
Course Description:
”The Art of UI is designed for those interested in creating user interface art for mobile apps, focusing on 2D art, illustration and graphic design. This introductory course provides a unique approach to app design, utilizing traditional design principles combined with conceptual design and illustrative techniques, allowing you to explore the creation of your ideas from rough pencil sketches to finished interactive mockups. Class involves research, coming up with an idea, wire-framing an experience, and visual development techniques. You will create a light prototype in InVision App using a collection of Photoshop or Illustrator screens as proof of concept, rather than a functioning app. This course will give you greater insight into the mobile gaming and internet industries, user interface and experience design (UI/UX) and is intended to help you understand the principles and techniques necessary to approach app design under the high pressure of a production setting.”
DESIGN BRIEF
Throughout the term, students were tasked with designing an app of our choosing from start to finish through initial research, brainstorming sessions, competitive analysis, user personas, prototyping, user interviews, and branding.
EXPERIENCE OVERVIEW
Los Angeles, 2016. Across the world, increasingly solar flare events began occurring in higher frequency causing major disruptions – in more ways than most people were aware. Flashpoints, sudden breaks and gaps in time and space, began appearing all over the world. Flashpoints are visible to few people, but the most intense in the U.S. were spreading across Los Angeles, CA.
Individuals able to see Flashpoints attempted to investigate the phenomena alone, and gradually, were brought together after encounters on solo missions. These friends of all backgrounds joined together on their mission to close Flashpoints in the time-space continuum, forming the Chrononauts.
MISSION OBJECTIVE
Across time and space, Chrononaut members travel to various locations in Los Angeles in pursuit of closing Flashpoints to preserve record of the city’s most pivotal historical moments. The team keeps a record including photos and historical info about Flashpoint locations. By committing events and moments to a historical record, the Chrononauts established physical keys to closing Flashpoints which are shared among the team. Once one closes the Flashpoint, the team member restores the point in time, and uses a key to visualize the event.
Animated prototype of Flashpoint
THOUGHTS & OUTCOMES
Throughout our design process, our overall concept remained consistent: a experience guiding users to learning about various points of history throughout Los Angeles.
In terms of visual identity, our team happened to choose a similar color palette, making it easy to agree on the final overall look of PastPort.
In the middle of our design process, we found that the name PastPort was taken by another app, and we kept in mind to eventually brainstorm and find inspiration for a new name. PastPort smoothly encompassed and conveyed the journey we wanted to create, but we were looking to employ an original name.
In addition to changing our name, in week 12 of 14, as a team we felt the experience needed some element to make it more cohesive. Later in the design process, we found ourselves needing to find a:
New Name
Branding and Logo
Elements to make the experience more cohesive
After yet another stage of brainstorming and research, we looked for ways to more extensively gamify the experience. Deciding on a name took nearly a week - it was a tough decision. Following our visit to the Bradbury Building, using Blade Runner in our mockups and scenarios, our concept began to take a turn inspired by sci-fi films. We ultimately decided on "FLASHPOINT" — the name led to a story inviting the player to engage in the experience, giving them the responsibility of closing up missing points in history, called Flashpoints.
Creating a framework for the experience gave it a more interesting storyline and mission — we finally had a smooth way to wrap up our design goal of "tricking" people into learning.
Brainstorming sessions for Flashpoint