Sparkling Farm

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.

DURATION
Fall 2023

TEAM

Coco Chen, Leslie Li

MY ROLE
Experience Design
Future Casting

SOFTWARE
Figma
Maya
Gravity Sketch
MidJourney

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 project infuses mundane household chores with excitement by turning them into a virtual farming journey.

How are we designing spatial interactions based on overlaying two information architectures, the physical room and the digital farm?

BROOM RAKE

As you sweep, watch your digital garden flourish, making every sweep a step towards a greener environment.

MOP CURVED BLADE

With each mopping, clean your space and simultaneously harvest your virtual fruits.

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?

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.

Crime Scene

Farm

Deep ocean

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?

Grow Flowers

Sweep floor

Picking Fruits

Clean windows

Lay An Egg

Wash dishes

Whack-a-rabbit

Fold clothes

Throw Away Rotten Fruits

Throw away trash

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.