division5 - We build software for humans.

Ciceroni Virtual

Ciceroni Virtual is a mobile application for android and ios which uses augmented reality technology to show information about museums paintings or sculptures. The app shows the information both in audio and text and is used by tourists who visit the National art gallery in Tirana.

Challenge

Natural features detection

This application’s challenge was in being able to scan physical objects in the museums not varying by the lights or camera position. Also, it was necessary to give similar experiences both in iOS and Android. The user had to be able to use the application without a tutorial so the UI/UX had to be very easy.

Here are the challenges identified :

Scanning physical objects in different lighting and camera position

Same UX in both android and iOS platforms

Easy to use the application without needing a tutorial

Our Approach

Work closely with the client to better understand the end-users behavior.

1. Scanning physical objects in different lighting and camera position

You can do AR in different ways, you can use black and white markers, GPS positions or even barcodes. In this case we had to use AR on physical objects which is also called NFT ( Natural features tracking ).

2. Same UX in both android and iOS platforms

Since this was a native application one of the challenges was to ensure that the UX was similar to both android and iOS platforms. We also had to take into consideration the fact that Android and iOS have different ways of navigation when designing the UX for each of the platforms.

3. Easy to use the application without needing a tutorial

The application had to be very easy to use. The National Arts Gallery is visited by people of all ages, we had to make sure that everyone was able to use it on the first try and get the full experience. This meant making it as intuitive as possible and get to the end result with very few steps.

Business Value

Get information about art directly from your phone

This solution makes it possible for foreign tourists or people who don’t have a guide with them, to get information about specific art. The process is very simple since what you have to do is open your app, start scanning, aim your phone to the art in the museum or gallery and get information about it.

You don’t even need to have mobile data since the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana provides free wireless for all its tourists.