HiHubei
Mobile Architecture(1956) mentioned by Yona Friedman criticize the underestimation of inhabitants in many ways including touching the ground over a minimum area, being capable of being dismantled and moved, and being alterable as required by individuals. Considering the fact that Yona’s utopia maximizes the possibility of interaction and the freedom of inhabitants to manipulate architecture, virtual reality is an ideal way to achieve the goal.
The Challenge
How to activate the less developed areas in the city like Hubei, an urban village in Shenzhen. We all know that Shenzhen has been under high-speed development in the past decades. However, as labor rushed to the central areas for their livings, the urban villages have been ignored. People tend to describe these areas as ruined and less vibrant places. Our mission is to create interactions between humans and the surrounding environment so as to attract more people by developing a VR game app.
The Design Process.
Problem
" It's the most important part of this ultimately diversified city. I found that it wasn't a ruined place like people described. " -- Wang Da Young's talk on Hubei Village in Shenzhen.
There is widespread prejudice against the urban villages: full of low-income workers, low rent rates, and dirty environment. Indeed, as we visited Hubei village located in the central area of Shenzhen, we found that the people there are very friendly. Although the infrastructure has been quite old, there are also many Historial houses and temples which are significant for Chinese conservation of ancient histories.
To remove this stereotype, I teamed up with my classmates to do a detailed user interview regarding their impressions on urban villages, synthesize the user needs. How to attract people to learn more about urban villages is our target. We sketched a wireframe of a VR game app that drives people to learn the histories of these villages.
Work Schedule
Research
>>Literature Review
I first looked into the literature review including academic papers to understand the historical factors that lead to this situation. I also looked into the journals and other informal publications to diagnose the problem. Additionally, I looked into the online dataset and understood that the long anarchic state leads to the sterotype of visitors outside of the villages.
>>Interview
Parallel to the literature review, I also conducted an interview with more than 10 people in order to understand their impressions on Hubei. Instead of requesting the quant data, I invited the partcipants to share their past experience and concerns during their visit to the village. At the end of the interview, I collected the information and included some key quotes:
>>Case study
>>Reflection on case study
Storyboard
Once we understood the problem, and the user impressions on Hubei village, we turned the insights we learned into the design. This part of the work was finished during the 2017 Fun theory studio. During three days, the team worked together with a coding professional at SCUT. Before we dived deep into the details, we first did a brainstorm game, ca. We deployed a matrix of storyboard, experience design, user flow, interview to prototype the product. The result is displayed below. This exercise helped us to identify the potential improvement of urban villages.
>>Brainstorm
Prototype
After the user research and narrative design, it is time to prototype the design scheme and test it with the users. I then turned to the high-fidelity design and prototyped the key screens and user flow. In this round, I also simplified the visual components and introduced less complicated icons, providing a more concise way to communicate with the users. I first prototyped the dashboard view. The users can access the village history, public space and get credits from the game engagement.
>>Low-fidely Mockup
>>Game demo
>>High-fidely Mockup
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