Sparkling Farm
Overview
Sparking Farm is an innovative design project that merges virtual reality with everyday living to reframe household chores as delightful farming activities. The project's essence lies in enhancing the mundanity of tasks like sweeping by transforming them into virtual seeding, watering, and harvesting.
Timeline
Fall 2023
Team
Coco Chen, Leslie Li
Responsibilities
Experience Design
3D Modeling
Software
Unity
C4D
Figma
Sparkling Farm was featured at World IA Day 2024 as a distinguished presentation, where I was invited to share insights and methodologies relating to Information Architecture (IA) in Spatial Design. It spotlighted our innovative approaches and solutions for integrating information architecture seamlessly within physical environments, illustrating the impactful application of IA principles in enhancing spatial experiences.
Our goal
Our project infuses mundane household chores with excitement by turning them into a virtual farming journey.
Broom To Rake
As you sweep, watch your digital garden flourish, making every sweep a step towards a greener environment.
Mop To Curved Blade
With each mopping, clean your space and simultaneously harvest your virtual fruits.
How are we designing spatial interactions based on overlaying two information architectures, the physical room and the digital farm?
How did we get here?
Have you ever experienced…
Why people generally dislike doing household chores?
Time-Consuming
Repetitive and Tedious
No Immediate Reward
“A tidy environment contributes to a pleasant mood.”
Design Goal
HMW motivate people to do the house chores?
Make it Fun
Use Reward Systems
Set Clear Goals
Routine Building
Ideation
01 - Scene
What if household chores could transport us to another world?
With the power of XR, we envision breaking the boundaries of space and the mundane nature of tasks.
Compared to crime and ocean themes, farm scene may be more suitable for a wider audience, including children, so we chose to continue with that.
02 - Activity
What tasks within the farming scenario can be mapped onto household chores?
We decided to start with the sweeping scenario, carefully studying different sweeping actions and patterns, and then finding a clever and suitable way to map these movements onto the farming activity.
Information Architecture
AR offers us a unique opportunity to redefine spatial interaction by utilizing metaphors that overlap two information architectures to promote emotional engagement.
01 - Tools
Our broom was designed to resemble a rake and the mop took the shape of a blade, We are utilizing the similarity of their affordance to make the user feel as if they are doing another thing.
02 - Target
Mark areas that have been swept, guides users for more efficient cleaning but also ensures no spots are missed.
In the dirtier areas, we utilize the placement of more fruits to allow the user to drag the area more times to finish harvesting all the fruits.
03 - Environment
Add secondary environmental elements to enhance ambiance and immersion and increase confidence levels.
User Flow
Enhancement Features
Animation
We implemented some enhancement features, for example, animation of plant growth, to give user immediate feedback and sense of achievement, in order to make the experience more engaging and convincing.
plant the seed
grow into flower
bear fruit
harvest
Glitter effect & Sound effect
Incorporating sparkling visual effects and crisp sound effects to evoke a sense of magic, while also capturing the fresh feeling of a cleaned space in reality.
Visual Elements
User Testing & Iterations
Exploration of different mopping positions
Why AR?
Safety & Comfortability
Adding visual trails - Efficiency!
Previous version
Current Version
Prototype
Utilizing Unity, we brought all our ideas to life through a tangible prototype, enabling more intuitive user testing.
Future prospects
Transforming Monotony with Positive and Dynamic Feedback for Increased Well-being.
Other Scenario Applications
Factory assembly line jobs
Health and Fitness
Watch Our Silent Mini-Show!
We made a fun little film using silent theater to introduce our AR broom! Watch as we act out the struggles of traditional cleaning and how our smart solution sweeps away the hassle—no words needed!