UX Design of Augmented Reality House Configurator : Mobile AR Application and Web Administration Interface Design

Abstract: Many of us find it difficult to make big decisions, building ahouse is one of them. It is perhaps the biggest investment andproject that one takes on. During a house building project, thereare many things that needs to come together, you have to finda plot, choose a house model and lastly all those other choicesas for example the kitchen and bathroom details. It is in thisdecision process that it can be useful to be able to test differenthouse models and materials before the final decision is made.It is this process that is the focus of the thesis, or rather, a tool tofacilitate decisions. There are existing solutions today where the usercan change materials in houses online in virtual reality, this thesisexplores how this functionality could be conceived in an AR (AugmentedReality) environment. With this, the user can see their housein real size on the site before the construction has even begun.Neava AB has developed an application called Arvue where it is possibleto view an AR model of a house in real size. The houses NeavaAB produce belong to their customers, who are house companies.But as the team at Neava AB worked on developing customized configuratorsfor virtual reality, some challenges began to emerge.It takes a long time to agree with the customer which colour shadeis correct and the communication between the two at this stage ofproduction can sometimes take a long time. During which Neavahas to wait for the customer’s reply before they can continue theirwork. The problem regarding to the colours is also connected to thecustomers brand identity as the house companies all have their ownspecific appearance and want both the interface and images to reflectthis as strongly as possible. This increases the communicationbetween the two even further.The aim of the thesis is to design a tool where the house companycan administrate their own interface in the interactive AR configurator.The interface design is focused on user experience and evaluatedby measuring the usability and user experience.The work presented in this thesis applied a user centered designprocess, in which the most important part is to involve the users inthe design and to base the decisions upon their needs and feedbackin different ways. This work applied interviews, surveys, evaluationsand user testing continuously to control how well the results were inline with the identified needs.The thesis presents a proof of concept for how this tool for the housecompanies could be conceived by designing both the interface to administrateand the tool itself. By developing this tool Neava AB wouldboth reduce the time they spend on communication but also have aprogressive and innovative product service which could help reducethe environmental impact of building new houses. This is achievedby helping the users make better decisions and reduce the amountof re-buildt houses.