AR Colour Visualiser

Visualising space with colours even before you paint it

Client

Akzo Nobel, Dulux Paints

Project Overview


Key points 


The client demands were emphasised on time constraints and application functionalities. The organisation managed to gain this project solely because of the assured proposal that they can deliver the final product within the least span. Developing a mobile application with multi-lingual, multi-platform multi-persona support within eight months was indeed not an easy task. Conducting quick yet effective research on a budget was very challenging. 

Focussing on customer experience is the key to success. However, this project was all about building a bridge between business, customers and the Agile team thereby creating a harmonious relationship between Agile, Scrum and UX Design. 

As the name implies, the main purpose of AR Color Visualiser is to visualise a space using Dulux paints colour palette with the help of Augmented Reality. Designing a mobile application for this was indeed challenging as it needed intensive research within a short span. The application is meant to have B2B and B2C variants in both Android and IOS platforms, making it compatible to use in 20+ markets worldwide thereby creating multilingual features to be incorporated. 

Effective collaboration with the internal teams helped in making the designing phase a bit easier. 

Roles &Teams 

Questions & Assumptions

As part of the data collection in the project discovery phase, Business Analyst and the Design Lead had conducted qualitative as well as quantitative studies at the client locations. One to one meetings and workshops helped in clarifying the assumptions and queries. This mobile application mainly focuses on two personas - normal users and expert users. Normal users are the consumers whereas expert users are Interior Designers and paint Experts. Since these categories are not active participants in the Paint consumption stories in our country, there arose the need to gather information from those personnels at client locations. 

Persona 

Normal users and Expert users are the two main personas studied here based on which two different versions of the app is created to cater the needs of both. Below are the two app versions. 

Qualitative 

Direct interaction with the expert users was pertinent as they are the ones who exclusively deal with paints and they are lesser in number compared to the normal users such as consumers or app explorers. Hence, a qualitative analysis is required for this persona. Interviews were conducted to collect information from these expert users. 

Visual ethnographic studies were done on these expert users by understanding their conventions and client interactions. 


Quantitative 

Basic demographic surveys were conducted on a wide range of normal users wherein the data regarding their age, gender and other general features are retrieved. 

A generic questionnaire was prepared to understand the usage and application of colours in this group of users. 


Affinity mapping

The data collected from qualitative and quantitative research was plotted through affinity mapping. By using this mapping method, ideas were grouped and clustered into categories relevant to each theme. The patterns that emerged were noted and helped in making the app feature-rich. 


Priority Matrix

Although numerous features were identified to be included in the app, the major challenge was to identify the features to be focused on primarily in the first release. Since the time was very limited, the most acceptable approach was to concentrate on the focus points. Evaluation and creation cannot happen at the same time in our brains. Hence we created the ideas or features first and then tried to evaluate them using a priority matrix. 


User flow

A side-by-side comparison of the user flow in both apps was done to identify the similarities and differences in both cases. Similarities represented were common traits which could easily be achieved using common functionalities and hence a lot of time was saved in this regard. However, dissimilarities were obviously considered separately as the functionalities were different. As shown in the user flow diagram, similar functionalities are represented in the same colour whereas dissimilar items are in an alternate colour. 


User Stories

From the above processes, user stories were defined and developed further and added the acceptance criteria as well. 


Common Stories

Visualiser exclusive stories

Expert exclusive stories

Wireframing & Prototyping

Developed low-fidelity prototypes and wireframes. 

Click here to view a few stories

UAT

It is imperative to perform UAT after investing both time and resources in a digital product to ensure the desired outcome can be achieved. An effective UAT was inevitable here as well. In order to ensure the asset branding consistency and compatibility of the functionalities in both Android and IOS platforms, multiple UAT was conducted which came out well in the final product. 

Heuristic evaluation was also carried out apart from this.


App Released

Android Play store


Visualiser

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.akzonobel.uk.dulux&gl=GB


Expert

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.akzonobel.pro.uk.dulux&gl=GB


iOS App Store


Visualiser

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/dulux-visualizer/id404007106


Expert

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/dulux-trade-paint-expert/id589781650