Ubuntu is an immersive African storytelling experience brought to life through collaborative mixed reality. Ubuntu transforms mobile devices into a looking glass to a new world. Travelers immerse themselves in sagas and epics narrated by a host of central guides and griots. As they travel into these stories, they will be called upon to both listen and explore as active participants. However, these are not linear tales, but living lessons—history itself—woven from the hearts and minds of the griots of today.
Challenge
The National Museum of Liberia approached and partnered with Joy Media to discover how the museum might preserve exhibits after they are taken down and how to impart the impact for artifacts in the absence of their presence. However, core to operating in this space was an understanding of the discussions and feelings surrounding digital repatriation.
Outcome
As a team we had to first determine: Who we were building our Solution for, What their needs were, and Why or of what importance was our solution to both our stakeholders and the overall discussions on digital repatriation.
While the National Museum of Liberia was interested in solutions for both native Africans and international populations, we found that ideating for non-native populations would have greater potential impact on the conversations on digital repatriation. We also felt a higher confidence in being able to conduct accurate and applicable primary research in our projects time frame with our limited resources. During the course of our research our focus and main questions took shape.
We elected for our target population to be members of the African Diaspora and to focus on African Storytelling. We outlined potential implications of our design solutions and used to them to create design principles which can be extrapolated to the larger conversion in the space, in addition to guiding our creation of a mixed-reality (MR) solution that embodied or demonstrated the Essence of African Storytelling.
Tools and Methods
Visual Design: Figma | Blender | Photoshop | Dall-E
Audio Design: ElevenLabs | TextFX
Research Methods: Semi-Structured Interview | Co-Design Workshop | Unmoderated Survey | Low & Mid Fidelity Prototyping
Prototyping: Figma | Adobe Aero | Bezi | Foam core | plywood
100%
80%
of Users said they found the Mixed-Reality
interaction experience impactful
75%
of Users expressed interest in
discovering new stories in the App
Background Exploration - Research Justification
Major Contributor: Lack of inclusion, impact, and agency:
While technology has seen increased use in both educational and museum settings in several mediums there is a lack of inclusion, impact, and agency for African cultures. For many populations around the world the unfortunate reality is one in which the dominant culture maintains the minority experiences in the background throughout various levels of society (Castelli 2021). Things like history, textbooks, movies, fiction, academia, and media center around the experiences and lives of the dominant culture.
Major Contributor: Current media lacks authenticity
When minority populations interact with these forms of media, even when the exhibits or stories center on their own or other underprivileged communities, they may feel deeply excluded as the narrative tends to come from the perspective of those outside of the community. Through this, the cycle of underprivileged communities and their experiences being primarily seen through the filter of the dominant culture is perpetuated (Castelli 2021). This filter risks erasing cultural history and alienating those who descend from minority communities.
Background Exploration - Key Terms
In the context of this study we define the following as:
Research Objective:
The objective of this study was to understand how self-identifying, afro-diasporic people who wish to reestablish a connection with Africa perceive, understand, and connect with African storytelling in the context of reconnection with their ancestry.
The goal was to learn about how these stories are experienced currently, both in museum and non-museum contexts to understand if they are effectively communicating the “soul” of African stories.
Subject Matter Experts:
To better understand the space we began with interviews of Subject Matter Experts.
SMEs were able to direct us in discovering and navigating the nuances of the space
Conducted 3, 1-hr sessions consisting of semi-structured interviews
Employed the waterfall method to aid us in connecting with more SMEs
3 Curiosity Zones:
Essence of African Storytelling
Role of technology in this space
Relationship between storyteller and audience
SME Takeaways:
Participant Profile:
Our focus was on connecting with a diverse range of Afro-diasporic individuals to better represent the diversity of our space. Participants were based in the US and chosen from varying age ranges, in line with grounded theory, to better inform our study.
Inclusion Criteria: Our participants will consist of self-identifying afro-diasporic people who wish to feel more connected to Africa. We wanted to avoid assuming that all Afro-diasporic populations have the same motivations or desire for connection.
Exclusion Criteria: Afro-diasporic people who are not seeking to connect with Africa or those who do not consider themselves as part of the African diaspora.
Analysis & Sensemaking:
After compiling all of the raw data from the participants and identifying areas of interest, we developed a codebook and assigned different colors to the chunked content based on the corresponding code. This allowed us to better identify and group themes
Research Insights
Based on our Generative Research and the insights from our study we created a set of principles which could not only guide the creation of our product, but also help to inform the conversation and others in the space on how to ethically incorporate and consider technology in this space.
Design Opportunities
Co-Design Workshop
Workshop Takeaways
Concept Generation
After generating insights from both the workshop itself and our existing research, we refined the problem statement our participants had developed. Then we diverged to come up with 60 ideas, 20 each, as potential solutions to the refined problem statement.
Then we brought the ideas together and began to affinitize and reafffinitize the solutions until they were organized into distinct groups. After a round of dot voting we identified which loci of clusters held the greatest resonance within our team in order to determine the foundation of our design solution.
To achieve this we employed a Diverging and Converging mindset
Entering a Story
Continuous Interaction
Branching Interaction
Turn Taking and Exploration
Interacting with objects
Mapping the Ideology
Creating thorough Diagrams and mapping the different aspects of not only the product but also specific interactions was necessary for multiple reasons. This allowed us to identify, discover connections between, and directly iterate on the many different aspects and touchpoints of Ubuntu. This also helped us convey the dynamics and visualize the functionality to our stakeholders in addition to providing the means to reflect and iterate on specific points for future needs
Interaction Mechanics Diagram:
Narrative Concept Diagram:
Interaction Diagrams & Mechanics:
Objective
Since the mixed reality experience we envisioned merged the physical and digital realms, we aimed to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test a single user's embodied interaction with our product. Our AR model relies on an accelerometer and gyroscope to sense its environment. As current AR prototyping tools like Adobe Aero and Bezi rely on camera input, they couldn't accurately represent our desired interaction. Therefore, we went back to basics and experimented with paper prototyping.
Storyworld
Description:
To emulate the storyworld our users would explore, we printed a large-scale image on four 11" x 14" tabloid papers. We then taped the images together on a foam core board.
Interaction: Movement
Users can move the foam board across the image to see different parts of the image.
Viewport
Description:
At any time, our users could only see one part of the image through their phone. To achieve this, we cut a phone-sized hole in the middle of a 20" x 30" foam core board. We also added handles to the board's edges for an easy grip.
Interactive Screens
Description:
At different points in the experience, users could interact with the screen by tapping on it. To simulate this, we cut phone-sized pieces from clear acrylic sheets and attached them to popsicle sticks.
Interaction: Pop-Ups
If an element is interactive, we would hold the acrylic sheets on top of the viewport. Users could then tap on the sheet to interact with it.
Concept Evaluation
We chose to conduct a concept testing using a semi Wizard of Oz methodology because we were still at an early stage of our prototype and we wanted to see what user reactions and interactions would be to our rapid Figma and Physical prototype. The goal of our study was to to observe how a user might intuitively use our product and to identify areas of improvement in each of the following interaction phases:
Usability testing
Here are some findings from our first concept evaluation:
Branching Interaction - Participant expected the branching point to lead to another story and was confused when the original story continued.
"AR" Connection - Participant had a mental model of what she consider “augmented reality”. She was unsure if our experience fit her model and was unclear how it augmented reality. She also wondered if she could explore other parts of the room and not just the table in front of her.
Customizable interactive objects - During the exploration phase, participant wished she could tap on any object to learn more about it and not only the ones that were preselected by our system.
Collaborative part unclear - Participant was unable to envision how this experience could be collaborative as we had introduced it as “collaborative AR”.
Initial Concept Storyboards
In order to visualize and bring together our initial ideas we created a storyboard to depict the mechanics for how one might interact with a digital guide. This version focused on both projection technology and the use of AI to create a digital guide in the user space.
Early Concept Storyboards
As we refined the interaction and presentation mechanics we used the brainstorming method of diverging and converging.
Our next iteration focused on not only projecting the story onto the users surface of choice but also a group focused experience. These shifts were driven by insights from both our research and co-design workshops and would help lead to our final User Flow and mechanics of interaction.
Final Narrative Storyboards
Adinkra Iconography
We used the Adinkra Symbols icon library created by Yoofi Graham and Kevin Hagan. These symbols represent a historical and philosophical significance, hailing from the Gyaman people of Ghana and la Côte d’Ivoire. These symbols were originally printed on cloth which royals wore to important ceremonies. The symbols have assumed global importance and are now found in many places.
Style Guide | Palette Swatch
Typography
For Ubuntu I wanted to find and employ fonts that embodied the stories within
Zilap Ethnia - Inspired by the African Vai script invented in the 1800s by eight illiterate Vai men
Manjari - As Zilap is such a bold font I wanted to pair it with a clean and modern Sans-Serif font that still maintained some character and life.
Redlining & Element Spacing
An early challenge to address was whether the goal was to create a solution that was geared toward being feasible and attainable by the National Museum of Liberia or a solution that was most effective and impactful for our main audience of influence.
Ultimately the direction of discovery and influence was: the impact of defining the space and factors as they relate to the ability to connect with African culture, the potential to develop guidelines for engaging with other cultures while prioritizing agency, and the importance of ethical research concerning both the diaspora and digital repatriation.