Reco’s Records
Virtual reality experience design to capture and showcase history from Seattle's Central District
Role
Product Designer
Team
Product Designer (2), Content Designer (1), Developer (2), Project Manager (1)
Timeline
Feb 2-3, 2024
Project Type
Hackathon
This project won second place at the 2024 RevereXR hackathon.
RevereXR is a company that creates community-driven interactive experiences through immersive storytelling of art, history, music, sports, culture, and heritage using extended reality technology (augmented and virtual reality).
The theme of the hackathon, held during Black History Month, was preserving history of Central District, a historically African American neighborhood in the city of Seattle.
What I did:
mapped out key visuals and interactions
created sketches and animations to visualize the concepts
worked with developers to bring these to life in our prototype
how might we preserve local history using extended reality technology?
Born & raised in Seattle
Multi-instrumental Musician & Program Director
Founder, Teen Life Centers & Late-Night Programs
Childhood memories, lifetime of music, and impact of late night programs
I led an affinity mapping exercise after the team interviewed Reco to identify the core nuggets. We then pulled relevant quotes from the interview recording.
“I have the fondest and earliest memories of living on Dearborn. And there's a really large street. We would build go karts.“
"I remember hearing this one screeching guitar when I was 10 or 11 years old, and we would say you're horrible, you're horrible! and we would throw rocks at the window, and that guitar player was Jimi Hendrix.”
“Our late night program was the first program in the city of Seattle to have computers available to young people.”
Challenges
Our team worked hard to keep the story focused and authentic, working with limited prior AR/VR experience and a short timeframe, which made this a very thought provoking and unique opportunity!
Design Explorations
I brainstormed with my team to identify ways to capture the essence of Reco’s story. These were some of the ideas we came up with.
idea 1: A room full of artifacts
Interactions:
Walk around and look at objects in a room that represent key parts of Reco's story
Pick up the item >> text, visuals, and a corresponding audio clip from Reco’s interview
Artifacts:
A photograph from childhood
A musical instrument that he played
A basketball from the late night youth programs
This idea was not pursued because we agreed that it was not focused enough for the scope of our short project timeline.
idea 2: A go-kart ride down the streets of Central District
Interactions:
User is in go-kart ride down the neighborhood street
Visit Reco's favorite neighborhood locations on the way
Artifacts:
Garfield High School
Teen Life Center
Scottie’s Pool Hall
Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Center
This idea was not pursued because we were concerned the potential motion sickness a virtual go-kart ride could cause for some users. We wanted to ensure that the experience would be as inclusive and enjoyable as possible.
idea 3: A record collection
Interactions:
Browse through record collection, each representing a part of Reco's story
Pick up the record >> a song or an audio clip plays
This idea was not pursued because we were concerned the potential motion sickness a virtual go-kart ride could cause for some users. We wanted to ensure that the experience would be as inclusive and enjoyable as possible.
Conceptualizing Reco's record collection
We decided to focus on an auditory virtual reality experience to highlight voice audio and music. We chose a music themed experience to emphasize Reco's lifetime passion for music.
Visuals
Gallery wall of records
representing core music and memories
Album covers
displaying significant music artists and locations
Record player
on a shelf under the records
Pick Up Record
--> Voice Audio (Reco's Interview)
Play Record
--> Music Audio (Selected Music Tracks from Reco)
Building Reco's record room
Creating and testing our prototype
Reco and our team
Looking to the future..
Scalability
If we had more time, we would curate a more well-rounded record collection of additional recorded stories, selected music tracks, and photos for album covers. This format could be scaled to incorporate parallel room and storylines and used as an educational tool to teach youth and community members about history.
Accessibility
To increase scalability and accessiblity, we would include text transcripts, offer multiple languages, and create mobile and web based versions.
