Augmented Reality AppHelps Customers Choose The Right Product

Using augmented reality, Globant is helping consumers find various first-aid products through smart connected devices that help users locate theproducts best suited to their needs.

Background

The Challenge

The client is an established brand, engaged in research, development, manufacture and sale of a range of products, and doing business around the world with a focus in the healthcare industry. The Company operates in three segments: consumer, pharmaceutical, and medical devices. The Company's subsidiaries operate numerous manufacturing and research facilities worldwide.

The client explained the challenges that their customers encounter trying to find appropriate products to care for family members who are injured or in need of medical attention. The inventory stocked by medical supply outlets often confuses customers, who buy products that are inappropriate.The client’s main problem was that users would purchase many times a first aid product that was not ideally suited to their problem, thereby getting suboptimal. This not only reflected in a bad way on the product and the brand, but also drove customers to purchase lower quality/lower priced products.

The solution

The main goal was to to understand patient’s needs and helping them through AR to find the right product among the various similar products on the same shelf.

The Globant team and the client reviewed various approaches to enhance product differentiation on the shelf. The products had to be simple, personalized, easily located in a store, sufficient to the requirements of treatment, and provide comprehensible instructions for use.

The team designed a first aid application that uses off-the-shelf augmented reality to launch a guide with information about treatments, prevention of infection and how-to videos. The app can also flash promotional coupons to the user. Potentially traumatic situations can be reduced to a plan of action toward recovery.

The product gathers information on consumer navigation and interests, while offering products that correspond to the the research data. Maintenance and evolution of the product has to be timely, with updates weekly rather than monthly.

Technical Strategy

From the start, the Globant team employed a custom design that can be tailored to each product. Unlike alternatives such as BlippAR which bundles brands together with other Augmented Reality experiences, an in-house solution enabled the client to retain full code ownership, in an exclusive app, with full control. In this scenario, the use of a third party platform would dilute the brand experience and require customers to download a platform which is, or can be, used by competitors.

BlippAR In-House Dev

Reduced load times

Offline experience

Simple editor

Unlicensed use

Exclusive Content

Dedicated Client App

Client Owned Code

Custom Experiences

User Interface:

The UI is comprised of several interactions with the client’s products. The team analyzed the technology available and chose the one most suitable for the desired experience.

*HTML5 has known issues in mobile applications, including limited access, no hardware APIs and difficulty integrating native elements.

Given the target platforms (iOS, Android) and the technical characteristics of the project, Unity 3D proved to have the best mix of features. Support for scripting in Javascript, Boo and C#, greatly expanded the developer base. Advanced 3D rendering technology allowed for quick implementation of visually appealing graphics, animations and particle effects.

iOSSupport

AndroidSupport

Performance

Unity

ADK

Objective C

HTML 5 !!

Smart Shelf Front End

Video PlayerExperience

Middleware - Common Services

GalleryExperience

Interactive 3DExperiences

Smart Shelf Back End

User Mgn Telemetry Coupons 3rd Party

Services API

Platform Infrastructure:

The back-end provides a set of a common services to be used by the smart-shelf application as well as support for potential new applications as they are rolled out. The base contains cross-app functionality, such as social interactions, user support, telemetry, and a collectibles system. Each new app interfaces with these features, consuming services while coexisting on a unified infrastructure. Globant selected Python as the programming language and Gambee to be used as a gaming backend engine.

The Gambee back-end engine includes a set of RESTful APIs that features web services, such as user management, authen-tication, game parameters storage, PvP Engine, IAP (In-App Purchases), GeoIPAds, Telemetry/Analytics etc. One of Gambee’s powerful features is a web based administration interface through which non-technical personnel can edit the game’s functionality and upload new assets.

Project Execution Strategy

Globant used Scrum methodology to meet objectives, make tech decisions and eliminate impediments. Globant commissioned an agile team of 5 to 8 Globers with complementary skills to manage end-to-end specifics and feature backlog.

Prototype Phase: The prototype was based on a defined and documented original idea. The core team was assigned and the roadmap specified. Project implementation and technologies were benchmarked.

Inception Phase: Product design and architecture were aligned with the technologies and testing strategy. By the end of the inception phase, the team had a feature list, specifications, development schedule, initial mock-ups, PODS deployment strategy, post launch support plan, and gaming experience approach for content sharing.

Development Phase: The solution was implemented on the defined architecture. Development and testing were iterative. The team succeeded in delivery of iOS & Android apps with product interactive features including videos, infographics, geoFencing, couponing and character interactions, server files, commented code and documentation.

Types of Teams created:

TDUI

QC QC

UX

UXVD

VD

QA

PGMCORE TEAM

EXTENDED TEAM

LEADERSHIPTEAM

TD

UI

DEV

UIUISolutionPrototype

ProductionSustainmentLive Ops

Prototype Inception Development & Post Launch Support

POD ONBOARDING PROCESS

Prototyping Pods

Types of PODS

A combination of design, development, and embedded QA with higher weight on development

Fast prototyping, demos, Workshops & Brainstorming sessions

Solution Pods POD 2

70-30% combination between product and development roles.

Concepts, prototypes, product roadmaps, papers, SME for needed areas to enhance.

Alignment & Brainstorming sessions.

N PODS as needed.

POD 3

POD N

The Takeaways

Globant partnered closely with the client and introduced its agile methodology to create a proprietary product and platform that evolve along with the client’s product evolution.

The App helps to transform potentially traumatic situa-tions such small domestic accidents into a plan of action for the recovery.

INNOVATIVE SERVICE: The client retained full code ownership, so to create custom experiences, reduced load times, create offline experiences, and exclusive content.

PROPRIETARY PRODUCT:

Globant has many teams of multidisciplinary pro-fessionals, so it offered the multinational a unique and complete set of solu-tions from creation to maintenance during the evolution of the product.

ONE STOP SOLUTION: Globant’s methodology allowed the client to move promptly and change the path anytime was needed.

AGILE APPROACH