Recreating the Thrill of the Classic American Motorsport
LEGO - Ford Motor Company
Overview & Impact
In close collaboration with LEGO and Ford, I led the design direction of the Ford Mustang Shelby® GT500® experience on LEGO's Technic AR+ app during my time at Unity. We were challenged to create a mobile augmented reality experience that would recreate the thrill of drag races with the sheer, raw power of the iconic Ford Mustang Shelby.
• 500,000+ global downloads as of July 2023
• Average rating of ⭐4.7 stars on the App Store as of July 2023
• Average rating of ⭐4.7 stars on the App Store as of July 2023
Role:
Creative Director, Product Designer. Led 2 other Product Designers.
Creative Director, Product Designer. Led 2 other Product Designers.
The Challenge
Drag racing in motorsports can be extremely mundane, and quite literally, straightforward. Cars speed down a straight road in attempt to get to the finish line first. Our challenge was to create a visually engaging, challenging experience that would make use of AR technology, while showcasing the sights and sounds of the Ford Mustang Shelby.
Process
Motorsport drag racing was a foreign concept to many on our team. We had to first understand the regulations and rules, and watch a few adrenaline-filled videos. We quickly realized that timing was everything. If we could create gameplay elements surrounding that, it would quickly captivate enthusiasts and accurately replicate the quintessential motorsport event.
Without question, the full end-to-end user experience of the application had to be accounted for, including the planting of the virtual drag race tarmac, all the way to the sounds of crowd cheer. The setup of the track (seen below) had to be extremely intuitive and quick to retain attention of our younger target audience.
From past video game experience and further research on drag racing, warming up tires for maximum grip was a very well-received gameplay element. It required precise throttle control and timing, and it ultimately rewarded the user with a hit of dopamine accompanied by AR visual effects and the authentic roar of the Mustang's engine.
Through rapid prototyping and collaboration with our developers, and detailing out every specification possible, we built a very well-received tire burnout minigame that preceded the main drag race gameplay feature.
To add a dose of fun and challenge to the gameplay, we placed virtual orbs on the ground that could either positively or negatively affect the elapsed drag race time. Much like in bowling, the Mustang’s aim and angle were crucial to achieving a fast time.
User Testing
First-hand impressions, overall learnability, and delight were extremely important for the experiences we built with LEGO. As we built prototypes, we ran several user testing sessions with children aged 8-12 to validate some assumptions and get an overall grasp of whether or not our experiences sparked joy and encouraged replayability.
To our delight, participants were able to quickly augment their ideal drag race track into a free space, and fully understand all the gameplay mechanics almost instantly.
We logged down UX findings and bugs, reviewed them, and prioritized them with the team to ensure we spent a suitable amount of time and resources on impactful improvements.
Several user-testing sessions were held to evaluate usability and overall sentiment of the experiences.
Moodboard and abstracted 3D environments of American locales where users could race in augmented reality
Deliverables
In addition to moodboards, high-level flows, wireframes, clickable prototypes, design system components and styling within Figma, we also delivered detailed high-fidelity flow diagrams that communicated specifically to developers.
There were also UI animation, visual effects, and sound effects guidelines provided to technical artists and developers to supplement the gameplay experience. Edge cases like losing tracking of the LEGO model were all specified and presented to the user at the applicable touchpoints.
Outcome
LEGO Technic AR+ launched on iOS and Android in 2022, with over 500,000 global downloads to-date. It has an average rating of ⭐4.7 stars on Apple's App Store, and ⭐4.3 stars on the Google Play Store (due to some initial hardware incompatibilities).
It has since unlocked a new way of play for LEGO and its customers, and engaged new set of audience to experiment and try augmented reality. Because of the overwhelming success of the AR+ app, Unity is continuously partnering with LEGO to create meaningful play experiences that adapt to ever-changing technologies and interaction paradigms.
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“It’s really cool to see your model come to life in races. It’s honestly the coolest game I have.”
Apple App Store
Apple App Store
“The kids found it really enjoyable that once it was built there was still more to play with and were amazed with the pull-back motor and the AR experience with the app.”
LEGO.com
LEGO.com
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