Reconceive.app is a mobile augmented reality (AR) and desktop game that lets users engage in an interactive narrative journey of pregnancy, infertility and miscarriage.
Results
With the mobile AR app experience and the desktop game of Reconceive.app, users can:
- Play an interactive narrative game about the journey of trying to get pregnant
- Experience the challenges of infertility and miscarriage
- Learn about how gender, race and sexuality impact motherhood
The Problem
Infertility and pregnancy issues affect 1 in 6 Canadian parents, yet most of us treat it as a taboo topic. Reconceive recognizes that people need a community where they can share their stories of infertility and pregnancy regardless of their gender, race and sexuality.
For the mobile AR and desktop gaming experience within the Reconceive app, users would be going through an interactive narrative that explored infertility, IVF, miscarriages and the emotional journey of trying to get pregnant. Although the script for the mobile AR experience had been written, the script did not translate smoothly into an intuitive narrative for the user.
As I began to tackle the wireframe of the mobile AR, I started to ask myself: How could I add more interactive elements into the narrative, while honouring the emotional journey presented in the script?
The Solution
Design gameplay interactions within the mobile AR and desktop game that lets the user navigate an emotional journey of infertility and pregnancy intuitively.
Tools Used
Adobe XD for the journey maps, mobile AR wireframe prototype and desktop game wireframe
My Approach
The Reconceive team had sketched out possibilities for what the AR section of the app might look like, but not how it would work in a practical context. The script had been written, but the interactivity was very simple, helping the user hop from one plot point to the next with heavy instruction from the main character in the story.
In my work for the Reconceive, I made sure to keep the user’s possible perspective and journey at the forefront of my decisions. Within the team of animators, illustrators and 3D modellers, I worked with them to add UX, gamification and interactivity to the Reconceive mobile AR app experience and eventually the desktop gaming experience.
Each Phase of Work & Deliverables
- Research (journey maps + AR research)
To begin the project, I was given the previous user testing results. The team had built a sample prototype for the AR, but the users’ feedback had come back with mixed results. The test users weren’t sure if they would play the AR experience at all, and their feedback was clear that the experience was confusing.
Referencing the script for the AR story, I took each of the chapters and plotted out the user journeys for each chapter, including the journey through the hub menu. The team realized that the user interactions in the script did not translate well into AR, and for the first few weeks, we worked on adjusting the user’s journey within the script. We wanted to make sure that the emotions within the script were preserved — one key theme within the user testing results were that most of the users felt strongly about the story within the prototype chapter.
During this stage, the team decided that Alex, the main character in the narrative that accompanied the user, would not instruct the user. Instead, interactive items would have a yellow aura, letting the user know which items could be tapped on and which ones were stationary.
I also did research on the current augmented reality apps available to download in the app store. Many were instructional or educational and had low interactivity, and very few apps contained a narrative adventure for the user to interact with. The apps that did have a narrative in it did not deal with social issues.
2. Mobile AR Wireframe (research on AR + MasterClass game design class tools)
Within the AR experience, I started off by designing the mobile AR framework, which consisted of buttons that the user always had access to no matter where they were in the app. These buttons included: the hub menu, the settings, the toolbox, and the home button, leading right back to the main app.
This was important, as the AR needed to be set-up manually by the user. The onboarding stage also allowed the user to set up the volume and the usage of their microphone, as well as giving them trigger warnings for the story ahead.
Once the user sets up the AR, the hub menu appears. There are five chapters in the hub menu – the Introduction, Autumn Plains, Winter Forest, Spring Mountains and Summer Desert. Each chapter can be played in any order, except for the Summer Desert, which unlocks when the user has played through all the other chapters.
Each chapter contains a part of the journey of getting pregnant. The Autumn Plains chapter is about helping Alex insert IVF needles and exploring a vision of a child they might have. The Winter Forest chapter contained fertility animals and dealing with a miscarriage. The Spring Mountains chapter lets the user choose a potential partner to be with. The Summer Desert leads the user to a party, where the main characters and the rest of the cast would show up to celebrate the user’s hard work throughout their journey of pregnancy and infertility.
While I built the wireframe prototype, I also experimented with Adobe XD’s auto-animated feature to help the team see how some of the elements would move once the user tapped on them.
3. Desktop Gaming Experience (desktop wireframe)
During the completion of the AR mobile wireframe, the team researched desktop games and considered the pros and cons of creating a desktop gaming experience alongside the mobile app experience. Creating a desktop gaming experience using Unity and the 3D assets that were being made for the AR experience would let the team expand on the storyline of the script.
The desktop gaming experience contained fourteen chapters in total and had a hybrid of 2D and 3D gameplay. Each chapter had either an interactive narrative or a 2D character storyline, depending on which chapter you were playing. The 2D stories contained an expansion of Alex’s narrative from the AR, as well as other stories featuring diverse characters, such as reading about Alex seeing other trans people at the fertility clinic.
The team also explored other gameplay and interactivity options, such as adding options for the user to choose how much money Alex would have to spend at the fertility clinic or on IVF. When the user played the IVF chapter, they would only have access to a certain number of needles, depending on the number they had chosen at the beginning. The team also came up with options to let users choose Alex’s age as a challenge that would make it harder for Alex to experience pregnancy.
Challenges & Key Learnings
Some of the main challenges with this project was learning how to apply UX to augmented reality, learning to incorporate gamification techniques into the interactive narrative and understanding the voice of the gaming experience from the perspective of the main character.
1. Applying UX to AR: Before this project, I had very little experience designing with AR. My degree gave me some experience working with AR, VR, and designing 3D experiences, but I had not used those concepts in a professional setting before. I was very used to applying UX and UI concepts to mobile apps and websites, but now with AR, I had to keep in mind that the users would be navigating a physical experience through their camera. Designing within this scope helped me to understand how to design for experiences outside of the digital screen and what the users would need in order to have a good experience within the AR.
2. Gamification Techniques: While designing the interactions within the mobile and desktop gaming experiences, I took Will Wright’s MasterClass on Game Theory. I expanded my knowledge on understanding video game techniques and researched video games while going through Will’s classes. Taking this class helped me to teach the team about video games and help them broaden their understanding of interactivity within the context of the pregnancy journey they had scripted.
3. Understanding Voice: I also took a class on UX Writing while I worked on the project, helping to shape the beginning of the voice and language of the gaming experience within the wireframe. Infertility and pregnancy issues are sensitive topics. The team recognized that themes of hard work, self-empowerment, love, and sex were often left out of the conversation. We worked on building the beginning of a voice chart, working together to decide how Reconceive needed to sound throughout the entire gaming and app experience.