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BLOOM //
Bloom is an XR flower arrangement game, player can make the flower arrangements in their own space and share on social media or send to their friends/families.
Timeline
User Research, Ideation, 3d modeling, UI design, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Role
July 2023 - Present
Problem & project goal
I had the idea of creating Bloom because I love flowers, and want to get better at making flower arrangements, but buying flowers in NYC is very expensive, I only occasionally buy them, and the flowers I buy are normally pre-packaged in a bouquet (not a lot of store sell individual flower), and the flowers I can find my local flower store or grocery store are normally pretty basic (florists often source flowers from farmers and the flowers they use are savvier) in that case I can’t practice more often and with more variety of flowers to create different looks. Therefore I thought I could create an XR flower arrangement game for people like myself to have fun making flower arrangements and sharing their creations.
Concept validation
To demonstrate the concept of Bloom and how people will react to the idea, I created a simple early-stage prototype in ShapeXR.
Takeaways:
-Flowers should have organic shapes and players should be able to cut the flower
-The players should be able to rotate and view the flower arrangement at different angles
-Can have seasonal special collection of flowers
-Add greenery options to go with the flowers
-Give the players the ability to choose their environment (like garden, studio) to make the experience more immersive
-Can incorporate a training aspect for those who want to get better at making flower arrangements
-Can have a gifting aspect that allows players to send the flower to others
I shared the prototype on LinkedIn, the post has 26,710 impressions to this day, received 289 likes, and over 40 feedback from people. From this, I realized that the concept of Bloom is well received and it’s a valid idea that is worth pursuing. Here are some highlights of the feedback:
Research
Research XR & simulation games
While there are a lot of AR, VR game, and simulation games, I think the concept of Bloom is rather unique. I looked into other single-player, relaxing simulation games, here are some examples:
First Touch for Quest Touch Pro Controllers: VR paint game
How I would rate this: 9/10
Things that are nice:
-Realistic, relaxing studio environment design
-Realistic spray/paint experience with sound effects, haptic feedback, and ability to mix color and apply color like in real-life
-Unlike paint in real life, the paint never goes out, the endless supply of paint is amazing
-Good intro session to show players how to use the spray paint and paint brush to paint, using both audio and text
-This is a stationary experience, players can sit somewhere comfortably and start painting
Limitations:
Since this is a demo project, they have provided black outlines on the canvas and sample images for players as a ref, but I was hoping that I could paint freely on a blank canvas.
Viridi: mobile succulent growing game
How I would rate this: 7.5/10
Things that are nice:
-Beautiful stylized design of the interface and succulents
-Easy intuitive UI design, shows if the plant is in a good water state or not
-Realistic growing and caring process, succulent changes through time, they go brown when not taken care of for a while and return to a good state when being watered properly
-Freemium model, can have basic plants but have the option to purchase more or access different spaces
Limitations:
I like the simplicity of this game, but at the same time, I wish there is more to do here, I normally only spend 2 minutes here cleaning the weeds and watering the plants, there is not much else to do.
3D modeling
Knowing which flowers and greeneries to create, I found reference images online, I prefer to find flowers in single stems, therefore I can see their form clearly and I will also look for images from different angles, that way I can more accurately create the flowers. I tried to keep the polygon count relatively low without sacrificing the look too much (I decided not to go with a hyper-realistic style, the style I ended up with is slightly stylized), but I think continue to adjust the flowers to ensure the performance of the game is good.
Design &
create
Research flower arrangement
To understand how to make flower arrangements, I took courses on Skillshare and Domestika. The instructors talked about the tools needed, how to prep flowers and vases, how to find inspiration for the flower arrangement, and the step-by-step process of making a flower arrangement. Because this is a virtual game, I think prepping flowers for longevity and adding things like chicken wire and frog (florists normally like to use flowers to cover these) into the vase to hold flowers in place is not that relevant. I do think I want to translate the course content into an easy-to-follow step-by-step process to show players how to make flower arrangements and how to choose flowers etc. at a future state.
UI design
For the UI design, I wanted the design to be simplistic and elegant, because the main focus should be on the flowers. I also wanted to make sure the design is consistent across mobile and mixed reality, therefore I wanted to make sure the design is optimized for both platforms, for the initial phase we decided to start with the mobile experience and adapt the design into mixed reality for headsets like Quest 3 and Vision Pro.
The initial UI design testing
To get ready for user testing, I created an interactive prototype in Figma and added animations to show how flowers may appear and be placed in the vase. I think since this is still an early stage, I did an internal test with my friends, I had them walk through the prototype and gave them prompts to complete the task. The goal of this round of testing is to see whether they find the UI design intuitive, see anywhere they would stuck, and ask them for feedback on areas of improvement.
I think overall, the testers think the UI design is intuitive, I didn’t see them struggle too much with completing the tasks, and one of them even mentioned that perhaps the tutorial is not necessary, so I am planning to do more testing on this. I also received a lot of good feedback on how I can make the game better which I think are all very good and I can consider how I can incorporate into the game at a later stage.
Feedback on the UI:
-Consider allowing players to drag to add flowers.
-Because the interface is intuitive enough, is the tutorial really necessary?
Good to have:
-Can provide haptic feedback when placing flowers in the vase
-Can recommend flowers that match well with the flowers chosen
-Can consider collaborating with brands/organizations to design location-based experience
-Can enable players to add a card with the flower arrangement and send it to others
The phased approach
To develop Bloom, we wanted to implement a phased approach, we wanted to start with a mobile AR experience and then adapt the experience to VR and MR. For AR, we wanted to start with a basic core flower arrangement experience, then add more features like virtual environments, allowing users to share on social media, etc. later on. Because this is an ongoing project, we will continue to make changes to the plan and add more updates here.
+To be continued
Development
Research flowers and greeneries
To find out which flower to create I researched commonly used flowers and greeneries arrangements, I did research online and looked at different arrangements from florists and analyzed which flowers were used. I started with 12 commonly used flowers and 4 greeneries, and later on created 4 less common flowers like porcelain berries, and snapdragon that I saw some florists use. I think each florist has his/her preferred type of flowers to use to create flower arrangements in their style and depending on the kind of arrangement and occasion, they will pick different flowers. Therefore I think to create unique-looking flower arrangements, having a wide variety of flowers to choose from is important, I will continue to create more flowers and greeneries for players to choose from.
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