Retail, VR, and Candy

Critical Making Spring 2019 Final Project Proposal

Project Title: Sugarfina VR Tasting Experience

What is it?

A virtual, traveling pop-up to be paired with the Barbie and Sugarfina brand collection launched in honor of Barbie’s 60th Birthday. You can read about the project in its initial ideation stage here.

What problem(s) are you solving?

I have always been interested in technology and UX as they apply to retail. As companies begin to dip their toes in emerging technologies, they will need to do so in a way that promotes their brand.

What will it do?

This will be a guided tasted experience that brings uses through a virtual world where candy, barbies and dreams come to life. It will act a a pop-up shop, engineering delightful brand experiences. The benefit here is that the pop-up can travel coast to coast or exist in several at once instead of existing in only one location.

How will it work?

Great question! I am still ironing out the details. The user will be able to taste all 6 of the candies in the collection as he or she moves through the virtual world. I am very interested in how this sensory approach will play out, especially for a candy store.

Key Components:

Along with UX and my marketing background, this project has several technical requirements. I will be creating my VR experience in Unity and then using the VIVE to demo it. I will be creating my characters and assets with a variety of 3D modeling programs. I also will be using my visual design skills to work with the beautiful brand that Sugarfina already has.

Timeline

As far as milestones I have hit this far, they have been mainly research based. Just choosing a project was a challenge. I have started to explore character creation on Reallusion and with a few other tools. To be honest, school has been drowning me this semester, so I want to be realistic with my progress expectations.

Moving forward, I hope to have sketches and assets for each room built in the week or second week following spring break. I only plan on actually building one room to start, that way if something goes wrong or time gets away from me I can reassess. That means over Spring Break I will complete my room sketches and ideation and start asset creation. After that I will put the room together and build the UX or how it will work in the remaining two weeks.

Supplies:

I would really love to order the actual candy for this project to demo the tasting experience, but I think it may be out of my budget as a grad student. Instead, I will buy similar candy at a grocery store.

What questions do you have?

How big of a space would actually exist in retail stores?

Have any stores invested in VR pop-up experiences?

Where do you feel you are lacking in skill and need assistance?

I am definitely struggling with Unity and VR in general- but I think once I have my assets I can more easily wrap my head around what to do- with some much appreciated help.