Digital Concept Development students at Business Academy Aarhus partnered with Hololink to explore augmented reality (AR) design. Over two weeks, they tackled two tasks: creating AR experiences for local businesses and designing an immersive experience for the renowned ARos museum.
A case-study from the future of AR design
With Augmented Reality (AR) spreading to every corner of the world and being used in every context, from advertisements to on-boarding, gaming, ed-tech and museums, it is vitally important that a new generation of designers gets properly acquainted with the how, when and why of using AR.
This is why we like to partner up with schools, business academies and universities, to learn from future experience designers, who have the clarity to re-invent the way we use and see things in ways that we might not spot ourselves.
In this case, we partnered with the Digital Concept Development students at Business Academy Aarhus and their lecturer Marie Elise Brandtoft.
The project was started with a 90 minute presentation by Hololink PM Jens Bäckvall, going through Hololink’s no-cade AR editor and presenting some use cases and examples.
The students were then challenged to create two augmented reality experiences in just two weeks.
The first task was to create something for a local business, such as a restaurant, retail shop or similar.
The second was to create an immersive and interactive experience for the world renowned museum of modern art, ARos.
They had one week for each of the two tasks.
We gave the student’s 4 business cases to start their journey with the following tasks that had to be accomplished:
As mentioned, we created 4 business cases for the students to choose between, with only a single working week in which to choose a case, create a design and implement a working prototype.
Below are the 4 business cases, to give you an idea of what they were asked to accomplish.
The students all had different backgrounds, with some having worked with 3D tools like Blender and game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine, while others had only used design tools such as Figma and had no 3D experience at all.
Nevertheless they all jumped in and were creating simple AR experiences within an hour of starting.
The main take-away that Marie (the lecturer) took away from these early steps, is that working with a hands-on, no-code editor is a great way to start your AR journey. All of the students found it easy to quickly create and showcase prototypes and after only a couple of days the students were already presenting interactive, functional prototypes using their own designs, in spite of having no prior experience with the Hololink editor.
The students all said that they found the work easy and we are happy to say, enjoyable. Although some of the least tech-savvy students had to work harder than the ones with 3D experience and the most advanced students wished for even more advanced software, they all felt that they could accomplish something valuable, without the software being a hindrance.
Allowing designers to focus on the UI and the design elements is one of the key strengths of an AR editor like Hololink’s, making sure that implementation is as easy and frictionless as possible.
When reaching the second part of the work, creating experiences for ARos, the students enjoyed the freedom of creativity and one student ended up applying for an internship at the museum, with the goal of creating AR experiences using Hololink.
A final testament to the possibilities that working with AR gives, is that over half of the students chose to use Hololink for their final exams, in a project of their own choice, where creating augmented reality was not a prerequisite.
In this case study, the Digital Concept Development students at Business Academy Aarhus partnered with Hololink to explore augmented reality (AR) design. Over two weeks, they tackled two tasks: creating AR experiences for local businesses and designing an immersive experience for the renowned ARos museum. Despite varying backgrounds, the students quickly adapted to Hololink’s no-code AR editor, emphasizing its ease of use and the ability to focus on UI and design elements.
The project showcased the potential of AR, with some students even choosing Hololink for their final exams.
