Tools on construction sites are constantly evolving to improve efficiency but it is hard to be efficient when communication is lacking.
When dealing with billion dollar projects, these errors can destroy budgets, deadlines, and the lifespan of the building.
Brainstorm / Development
I Did Many Interviews With People In The Field
I was lucky enough to be living, working, and studying in Boston as I developed this project. During this time, I had an active construction project happening next door to me and I was able to meet many industry professionals as a result. As a result of this experience, I learned that AR could really benefit workers in the industry by not only improving efficiency and immersion on a jobsite but also improve organization and safety.
Most Jobsites Still Rely Heavily On Physical Blue Prints
As I continued to meet with people working in the construction industry as well as the augmented reality industry, I started brainstorming how a user might navigate a construction site with AR technology. To my surprise, on many job sites, physical lines of workers queued up to look at these floor plans. Most workers tend to take photos of floor plans to minimize the need to return to the physical plans in an effort to increase productivity.
Concept Development
As I began to develop this concept, explored and sketched how augmented reality could be incorporated into a tool used everyday on a jobsite. Something that I learned right away is that on site hard hats are universally required. This knowledge gave me a good anchor to design around.
AR Safety Glasses Refinement
Further Development
After presenting some of the initial designs to a construction site specialist, I learned that nothing can be physically mounted to a hard hat due to potential disruptions to its effectiveness. There was, however, a lot of interest in further developing an idea around safety glasses.
UX/UI Development
Not only did I want to explore the form but I also wanted to get an idea for how someone might interact with the augmented reality safety glasses. I began exploring the idea of having blueprints in the cloud that workers on the site could access through a phone and project to their AR glasses via a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connection. In addition, the app I wanted to develop also had to improve day to day tasks whether that be getting live updates to floor plans or even notifications on material shipments.
App Layout
