3 things you need to consider when designing an AR Communication App

Risa Hiyama
Inborn Experience (UX in AR/VR)
3 min readSep 7, 2018

Hi, I’m Risa working at Graffity inc,

Graffity is a startup based in TOKYO who seeks to go global!
We’re developing a communication app using AR technology to bring innovation.

Recently, our app Graffity was featured by US App Store in the AR Spotlight section!

So today, I’d like to share “3 important insights I got from designing AR communication app”.

What is Graffity?

Before getting into the main part, let me explain Graffity. Graffity is a video chat app with AR drawing feature.

Our product concept is

Help people feel closer and funnier wherever and whenever in friendly and innovative ways

You can share 3D drawings with your friend while video chatting!
This means you can play Hangman together and/or create infinite verse of drawings with your dearest friends!

Important and small note 📝:
Graffity is now on Product Hunt!
If you like the design, concept or whatever the feature of Graffity, please Upvote!

1. Design product based on target users' daily life

First and foremost, you need to know about your target users very well. I know, it’s so basic. Everyone has their daily life with their own routine. If you create a product that does not align with their schedule, your product will never be opened.

To avoid the worst scenario, we chose one simple solution. Meet and observe users directly.

Our target users are university students because new trends always start with the younger generation.

We did 10+ interviews to find out about their daily habits. After that, we observed 5 student's throughout the day using the shadowing method.

We found out that many university students spend a lot of time video chatting with their families and friends living far apart.

So, we came up with an idea that enhances the video chat experience with AR.

2. Create real-time sharable AR experience

Most users' first reaction to AR apps is "wow!". However, very few users come back to use the app again.

What makes Graffity different from other apps, is that users are able to share AR doodles in real-time.

When you make AR experience sharable in real-time, it means every experience is unique and different. You are able to create a unique world together with your friends!

3. Communicate the experience, not the technology.

Ever since the ARkit was released AR technology has been a hot topic. Because of that a lot of AR apps are focusing too much to appeal to their AR technology.

However, we found that users are not looking for AR technology but looking for a rich and great experience. That is why we state our app as a Video chat app with AR feature. Not AR app focusing on video chat.
Our first priority is to provide an enjoyable time with friends.

One last word

Graffity is very challenging and is still an experimental product.
We will continue to improve to innovate new ways of communication with AR.

Please give us your feedback on Product Hunt!
Also, if you like our product, more than welcome to Upvote!

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