Project showcase

Expano

UX proposition, UI design, application programming
Opening the doors to Pomurje...
More than a modern museum exhibition! Through an innovative and technologically astonishing experience of the world by the River Mura, Expano will reveal the tradition and nature of Pomurje.
My Contributions
I took on the role of the UI designer, while at the same time defining the user flow for the applications, and creating some of the final applications in Unity.Thanks to the sheer number of different applications, and technologies used, this was one of the more diverse projects I worked on at AR9.
Expano
Series of presentational and educational applications
Aug 2018 — forever
I usually start my creative process by defining the target user group. This approach made no sense in this case since the project was aimed at a diverse group of users, from different age groups and diverse technical backgrounds. So my next step was to define what the project was aimed to accomplish.
This was much easier: the product is an educational and entertainment tool aimed at guests that are visiting the modern museum, and want to learn more about the region they are visiting. At the same time, the product should also inspire the user to visit more of the region's well-known tourist spots. All of the experiences combined in the museum should on average take one hour of users time.

With this out of the way, I prepared some basic product facts that the design should follow:
- The design should be easy to navigate and follow a standard navigation pattern on all of the products.
- The UI should work on small and big screens.
- The interactive elements are big and obvious, with associated animations.
- The information hierarchy is well defined and follows a standard preset that is usable on different form factors, and easy readability of information.

My next step was getting comfortable with the existing corporate identity of the project, and extracting some elements that would be used in the final product. My main pain point was the fact that the corporate identity was not yet finished, and I still did not know the final scope of all the different applications. As such, I created a basic UI system that would work in most situations and went hand in hand with corporate identity.

With the design system done and confirmed by the client, my next task was to translate this system to the Unity game engine workspace.I started by creating an "origin application" project, that consisted of colors, fonts, images, and sounds defined as variables (this would allow me to quickly implement changes).At this point, I also decided to construct a basic "Game Manager" script that would hold all of the application state information, as well as the current user information (this allowed me to quickly reset the state of the game).In the "origin app", I included transition animations, basic icons, interaction functionality, and basic functionality (such as automatic reset, video/sound playback, localization options, and multi-touch functionality).

When I finished with the "origin app" I distributed the source project (this served as a set of starting assets/building blocks) and the design system to my colleagues and started working on the actual final applications. This included:
- An audio library application
- Video and image library application
- Quiz application (simple game)
- Puzzle application (simple game)
- History presentation application
- Regional presentation and discovery application (client-server connection)
In addition to the applications mentioned above, I also collaborated with my colleagues to create additional material for other applications.
Expano colour and font scheme
Image of the color palette, font selection, and project logo.
Expano first design phase
First UI proposition
Expano second design phase
Final UI proposition
Results
The end result is a set of multiple applications that all work in similar ways but support a vast amount of different technologies. This includes simple Windows OS touch applications, web-based multitouch apps, VR apps, EEG controlled apps, sound-based apps, Kinect apps, and multiple video walls.The project is a success with the visitors, and for me served as a big learning opportunity. My biggest takeaway was learning to take into consideration the vastly different hardware specifications (from graphical capabilities of the system to the location of the machine), and learning how to design for an evolving product that groves and changes during the production phase.