With the push towards spatial computing and blending the physical and digital, we hypothesize that people are more likely to return to the digital world with more emotional triggers. This led us to the common web experience of "digital gardens."
Synthesized Values
Finding values that call for nurturing.
Our research led us to four key values within the nurturing experience:
Accountability, Patience, Protection, and Affection. From these, we
began designing a gamified experience that provided opportunities for
building connections between “gardeners” and their digital garden.
Curating the Experience
Designing a Nurture-based gameloop
From the user journey, we created several different interaction points to materialize the
nurturing values. Gardeners would engage in the full journeys of their plants, from
planting a seed, watering it, protecting it from weeds, and receiving flowers and seeds to
restart the process.
Prototyping
Affordances of XR in interaction
From the user journey, we created several different interaction points to materialize the
nurturing values. Gardeners would engage in the full journeys of their plants, from
planting a seed, watering it, protecting it from weeds, and receiving flowers and seeds to
restart the process.
Designing for Physical
Transitioning between Reality and Virtuality
Beyond having the experience in passthrough,
we wanted a tangible interface that would fit into the nurture cycle we
curated. Our intervention was a timer like bucket that would reflect the
cumulative growth of your garden in your space. As more time passes, the
light slowly fades, until indicating a desperate need to water your plants.
Level Design
Developing an Onboarding
To make our garden interactions as intuitive and possible, we went through several
iterations of a map design that could teach gardeners about the space. Using a stone
path, we build an onboarding experience that would teach each interaction of growing
a plant as you follow the path through wooden signs, maintaining the integrity of the
garden aesthetic.
User Testing
Developing from Playtesting
Throughout every iteration, we began to add more qualities based on
playtesting with our peers. This led to a fruitful discussion that helped
create gameplay features like shovels, digging, and accessibility featuress
like raising the garden, legibility with signs, etc.
User Testing
Project Reflection
As my first project using the Oculus, this was a great way to start exploring the affordances of “spatial” digital
interactions. I’m proud that we prototyped a fully loopable experience in passthrough VR, and now have
many steps for how we can further our initial goal of fostering nurture in the digital.
1 – Time: What would happen if we gave garden to a person to care for a whole week. What would the outcome be and what opportunities for redesigning the experience would we find?
2 – Integrated Product System: How can we further explore the transition between physical and digital by having more physical cues of the digital garden (e.g custom controller mods).
3 –AR Capabilities: While we were able to hack the oculus for passthrough, how can we lean more into integrating this garden with an existing indoor space? What if I could grow my plants on walls and different counter tops rather than this floating digital plane?
