I’ve notice the app does not run as smoothly as before and tends to run a bit slow. the app has also began to crash once I have started to run it within Xcode, I believe this may have been due to the amount of files or objects within the AR experience as a result I have tried to reduce the number of animations and objects within the AR files hopefully this will help the App run a bit more smoothly.
This week I have mainly been working on my thesis trying to get as much done as possible. Last week some feed back I received about the app is it could maybe do with some visual cues within the AR experience, this is something im going to try and work on and figure out how this could be done. I am a bit worried for time so if this does not get completed I could add this within my report and explain why this would have been a good feature to have. I was able to get someone to voice the navigation elements within the app so i’ll use that rather than using the text-to speech module.
This week I’ve continued work on the app and started work on the thesis. I was able to get a few of the cards working within the AR experience. I have noticed that it’s an on again and off again thing where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work, I’m still not sure what could be the reason behind this but for now it works so hopefully that remains the case. Concerning the letters I’ve had a feeling of creating alphabet blocks instead of just having the letter appear, I feel like that will improve readability a lot more but I’m still deciding on this factor.
This week I’ve started work on the app. I have added some animations to make it a bit more engaging for kids. As I mentioned before I’ve used the module AVfoundation to include voice-overs, in the hopes of simplifying the app’s navigation.
The only downfall to this I believe is the text-speech voice does not sound very engaging and might be a bit hard to understand due to its monotone voice, but I’ve also realised I’ve made a few spelling mistaking and missing commas within the text so once corrected, this could maybe help resolve this issue. Additionally, shortening the instructions may also work better.
This week I plan to continue testing some features.
After some feedback, I’ve tried to improve my smart Goals, with the goal of being as specific as I can
Specific
Develop an augmented reality (AR) app that allows users to scan alphabet cards, visually display the corresponding letters or words, and provide the audio pronunciation of the letters and words when tapped.
Where: In London
How: I want to make an app using Swift, reality kit and Blender that works on alphabet flash cards.
When: June 6th 2023
With whom: alone
Also, my Gnarrt chart as I forgot to upload this earlier
This week I decided to focus on the UI design, the main view was designed to ensure simplicity but also to have a kid-friendly look and feel that would appeal to kids. I will probably make the buttons a bit bigger to improve readability.
I’ve also incorporated audio cue buttons throughout the app, as my users are dyslexic children. I believe that reducing the amount of text to read and focusing on auditory guidance will make the navigating experience a lot smoother.
This week has been a bit of a slow week. I haven’t really done too much. I have started to create some notes for my thesis. I was also luckily able to get my hands on an Ipad so I’ll be testing some of the AR experience within the Ipad.
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything back from the specialist and the charity I contacted, dyslexia assist, so I’ll just continue with the secondary research.
This week I decided to test out some features. As the AR experience will work with flashcards I decided to try and test this out with a few I bought from Amazon, something I did find out was reality composer didn’t seem to work very well with these flashcards as it resulted in the 3D models glitching or just not appearing. After some trial and error I just decide to make my own, using images from sites such as Freepik and Adobe Stock. Luckily this seems to work a lot better.
in this test I’ve added a couple behaviours to the letter such as once tapped it will say what the letter is, one thing that I should take into consideration is the pronunciation of the letters as of now I am using a text-speech application to do this for testing purposes but since the main focus of the app is letter sound/phonics it may be better to get a voice actor or maybe even use my own voice to do this. Furthermore, I believe the app will probably look better using on an Ipad due to its bigger screen. I’m going to ask around to see if I can get my hands on one, if I’m unable to find one I think I’ll just continue using the iPhone but I may have to change a few features so it accommodates the smaller screen.
after testing I decided to create the wireframe for the app regardless of the device used the navigation should work on either, I’ve tried to make the navigation as simple as possible, and I’ve also tried to take into account accessibility features such as having a speech button next to a button that will provide a mini voiceover for the users such as pronouncing the name of the button. This feature was actually inspired by the dyslexia assist website, I was able to test this feature out in Xcode in Swift using the AVfoundation. I also thought it made more sense to have an instruction overlay than a whole view dedicated to the instructions as the overlay will appear within the AR experience and users will not have to leave the experience to find the instructions.
I’ve also been considering adding in a little bit of gamification. After some reflection I do think this will be an interesting thing to have I am not 100% sure it will be a final feature but I did create some tests using reality composer to see how exactly this could work. This was also made with a text-to-speech application so the pronunciations of some of the letters are not accurate.
Initial idea update: so far the app Alphabet Magic (app name, but I may change this down the line ) will be an app that focuses on understanding the alphabet and letter sounds, the concept of the app revolves around a popular teaching technique called Orton–Gillingham Method used to teach dyslexic children, how to read by focusing on the connection between letters and their sounds. The premise is more or less the same as it will work with alphabet cards, where the users can point their devices to the cards and a letter or word will pop up, users will be able to interact with the letter /word by tapping on it to hear the pronunciation/letter sound.
This week I decided to sketch out the two main features of the app, letters and words. At first both these aspects would have been in one AR experience but I felt this will make the ar experience too overwhelming, another concept was to have the ar experience work on both sides of the cards but this probably wouldn’t work as the users would have had to keep flipping the card and the whole user experience would probably not have worked very well. So splitting it into separate features will probably be more efficient. However, I am planning on testing these two features just to double check it works well.
During this week I collected all my secondary research and put it in a padlet, this really helped with organising the research and also pinpointing some priorities for the app.
With the research, I gave myself some questions to remind myself and answer to help more with creating the AR experience
What are the target audience’s interests, and behaviours?
Interest
Through research and websites such as starting blocks.gov that highlight signs of child development, I found kids around this age tend to love toys, and animals, be creative, and show enjoyment in success such as getting answers or questions right.
Behaviours
Specifically for children with dyslexia, some children may show behaviour such as
From this, I was able to make two user personas Alex where I was able to narrow down some pain points/challenges this helped a lot as I felt like I was getting to know my users a bit more
From here I moved on to Ideation, I made a mindmap and placed all my ideas in one place trying to figure out what would be the main priority for the AR experience, but also trying to take into consideration limitations such as timing and coding.
Throughout this process, I had to keep in mind my users for example within the user’s personas Alex struggles with phonics awareness so audio cues of pronunciations of letters and words should be key. Furthermore teaching methods that I found through research such as the Orton–Gillingham Method used to teach children with dyslexia how to read focus on the connection between letters and their sounds, as a result, children can assign more meaning to the language and develop better overall comprehension, therefore the ar experience may best work revolving around this existing method of teaching to children with dyslexia.
Animations will make the ar experience more enjoyable but too many animations may be distracting and take away from the experience, for example, the user persona Sophia gets easily distracted so a small number of animations may be a good solution for this.
Another Idea was to include gamification of AR elements, while this idea could prove to be very beneficial I have to take into consideration timing as there are 26 letters and words to get through and also figuring out how this gamification may work (it sounds a bit difficult to code)
So after all the brainstorming, the main features of the AR experience will include
I also believe not having too many features within the app will make this a bit more achievable and also make the learning journey less overwhelming. Something I should note is this process was all based on Secondary research, however, I am trying to see If I can gather my own primary research by reaching out to charities teachers/specialists at this point I have not found anyone yet, but I am still looking.