Sofia Design
UX · UI Design Portfolio
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BEMO

Bemo

AR entertainment platform where social, gaming and content creation are combined.

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Team & Role

Role: UX Designer
Team: Richard Picot (Mid-Weight UX Designer), Jason H (AI Research Engineer), Sam Weaks (Developer), Annie Keogh (Graphic Designer), Jamie Davies (Creative Director)

Duration: 3months
Tools: Pen & Paper, Sketch, Principle, Invision, Marvel, Final Cut Pro

 

The Brief

When another product designer and I were tasked with thinking about the ‘next phase’ of the Blippar App, we were given a stakeholder vision of the product. Our role at this point was to question it, test the concept and fill out any gaps. 

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We started off by understanding the flow of the app and trying to map out the different parts of it. This logic was very complex as the content varied based on a variety of factors. Each vertical had different visual and contextual results, as well as, different features. 
 

Workshops & Ideation

After a few weeks of working on this vision, my partner and I felt as if the app was trying to achieve too much. We were struggling to make it resonate to the user groups we were given, so we decided to conduct a number of workshops to help us steer it in a clearer direction. We spent two days working on an exercise called 'A Day in the Life', to understand the schedule of a specific audience, particularly a Gen Z male and a Gen Z female. We carried out a small poll within the office to gather an initial sense check on the exercise, as we had based it on our own sibling knowledge and intuition. After establishing a detailed "Day in the Life", we started brainstorming on the times and uses that they would look/check/use their phones.

Following this, we asked ourselves the question: what are the opportunities where we can fit in?  Could we take some load off other apps or moments in the day where they are bored/could be entertained? We jotted down all our possible entry points and from there, involved a few other members of the team to come up with some ideas of what we could do at these specific times. Once we exhausted all brainpower, we had several ideas that were extremely focused on our users and how they could help make their days more social and entertaining. We decided on the strongest ideas and combined them into a deck to present to our stakeholders.

Ideation - A day in the life.

Ideation - A day in the life.

Redefined Brief

Create an AR messaging app that introduces Gen Z users to AR technology in a creative, fun and social way.

Things to include:
- Computer Vision
- A Toolkit of AR Characters
- Messaging and Sharing
- AR Treasure Hunt
- Video Creation
- Fun and magical

 

What we knew

This territory was already starting to get busy, Pokemon Go had just been a massive hit and Snapchat had started to focus more on AR. We knew our proposition was unique enough to not directly compete with either, so we looked at their products as inspiration of what worked and how we could enhance it further. We conducted extensive research on GenZ users and what type products they use, asking the questions: how, when and why. We noticed many things we would have never thought. Twitter was a massive hit amongst 16-18 years olds especially for 'a laugh', as they could share content between each other, mainly in the form of memes or gifs or Vines (which they all thought was a great platform). We found that Snapchat was used more than Instragram as Instagram felt a bit too curated and 'try hard'. We used these insights to then create our product.

Initial Wireframes:

We started working on the creation as our main focus for this app, as we wanted people to be creative and use AR in a different and fun way. Creating sharable content. 

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The Brand

With BEMO we have created an AR entertainment platform. This is where social, gaming and content creation combine.

Interact with friends in a totally new way, become an AR movie director, play games, collect and trade virtual objects and characters, even teleport on stage with your favourite band

Create incredible stories and play extraordinary games, wherever you are.

Reality Redefined.

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App Architecture & User Flows

The initial on boarding to the experience is key for the kids to be captivated by the story and stay engaged in the experience. The client wanted the theme to be 'back to school' as the campaign would launch late summer, right before school starts.

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Quick Iterations and playful animations

Using Principle to create prototypes all along the way made it easier for us to move faster. With having tested our thought and features within the office and sometimes at the coffee shop across the street we could implement straight away with more confidence.

Due to time constraints and wanting to create an MVP we didn't want to forget about the details and to make this process more streamline creating animations on After Effects made it easy for our developer to implement little animations with gave the product a personality and defined the brand.

Principle Prototype

Principle Prototype

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UI Design

When me and another Product Designer at Blippar were tasked with thinking about the ‘next phase’ of the Blippar App we were given a Stake Holder vision of the product. Our role at this point was to question it, test the concept and fill out the holes.

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Download the app or visit the website here