Diversity in the US
The US sees scores of immigrants and people from different cultures arriving every year. These people try to blend in to the existing culture while also retaining some of theirs through ways like celebrating festivals. The most prominent way of retaining their culture however is speaking in their own language. Most people struggle with learning American English after arriving and often retain their own accent in the first few years of moving here.
Why is this project personal to me?
When I first came here I felt embarrassed of my own accent and tried to speak in American accent. However, I would often be too worried about how I was saying something, rather than what I was saying. As I started meeting more people here, I realized that everyone is different in their own way. I wanted to create awareness through this experience and hence chose to do this as a class project.
Setting the Mood
The mood that the project and its assets are trying to set is of respect, worship and of course inclusivity & diversity. The experience should invoke feelings of belongingness to the people whose culture is in the project, and should be informative for people of other cultures.
Conceptualizing the Experience
These are only some of the concepts that made it to the final board. An important part of the experience is the audios of people speaking in accents. The concept revolves around AR markers with image targets and QR codes which can be accessed from anywhere. I also chose Indian and Cantonese cultures for this experience and plan to develop the experience more to include more cultures.
Choosing AR image markers
AR image markers are used like QR codes, which you can scan and the experience will start. In my project, I used the Vuforia engine image targets feature. When the image targets are scanned an audio about their significance starts playing in the background. I chose 6 image targets, 3 symbolic to the Cantonese culture and 3 to the Indian culture.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
At this point in the project, I was really confused as to how much UI functionality I wanted the project. The low fidelity wireframes helped me to realize what Call To Actions
I wanted in the project related to different parts of the whole experience, audios, etc.
Here's the final version
Future Improvements
While I was able to accommodate Indian and Cantonese cultures in the experience, I have realized that I want to hear stories of more people from different cultures and include them in the experience. I also want to explore more 3D Designing with Blender as, it produces beautiful results.