Augmented Reality is increasingly finding its way into applications, games and interactive experiences. In practice, however, collaboration between UX designers on the one hand and software developers on the other presents a recurring challenge: the two groups work with different concepts and terminology. The “Community Platform to Promote AR Patterns” project, carried out by ZHAW and ZHdK, has created a common foundation to address this.
The result is a publicly accessible community platform at arpatterns.dev, as well as a GitHub organisation that brings together resources relating to AR patterns. AR patterns are reusable design patterns that address typical problems encountered in the design and development of AR applications.
The platform comprises three key tools: a patterns catalogue with detailed descriptions, illustrations and Event-Condition-Action (ECA) diagrams; an illustration toolbox containing around 300 vector graphics for depicting AR scenes; and ECA diagrams that enable technology-independent communication regarding AR interactions. The visual vocabulary of the toolbox uses standardised colour codes for anchors, detections and user interactions.
The platform is designed as an open collaborative project. Interested parties can expand the catalogue, contribute their own examples or provide implementations using various technologies.
The project was funded in the 1. Outreach Call.