Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Stephanie Hawn

Thomas & Friends Minis jump into AR with iOS 11

“The Rapid River” track in AR mode

Thomas & Friends Minis (TFMs) was one of the first AR apps released on the App Store today. It is free to download with in-app purchases.

I was a first time user so the app opened with a very simple yet informative tutorial for those of us unfamiliar with the train building world. Everything started in 2D, and not until you finished a track could you enter AR. I was slightly disappointed at this because I wanted to build my track around my real world physical surroundings. As this app’s main users are kids, I can understand the simplicity in first building in 2D then placing what you already built in AR. It would be great if the app included an option to build in AR in a future release. The main draw to AR is being able to have our digital content react with real physical items, I think the experience is missing out in this by only allowing you to place a finished track. But, that being said, it’s an amazing app and if I were a kid I would be enthralled with the fact that I can place Thomas on my dining room table.

AR Icon

First, let’s talk about the icon to switch into AR (although Apple refers to this icon as an “AR Glyph”). A lot of apps are going to have to tackle this challenge. From what I can tell looking at the 6 AR apps available at the time I was writing this article, every single one of them (except maybe My Very Hungry Caterpillar) has a 2D component to them. Being able to switch in and out of AR will be a big use case for most applications.

The icon used in TFMs is highlighted below:

AR Icon (magenta box)

This icon seemed appropriate for the intended audience. Although, I would have loved to sit in on user testing with a bunch of kids to see if this affordance worked for the majority of them. I do wonder why they put the icon where it is and not below the camera. It was hard to find, and I had to intentionally look for it since it blended into my train track.

AR Mode

Finding a plane to anchor the train track was very simple. There is only two options on the screen: a giant green checkmark and a back arrow. Assuming most kids have used this app before they probably know what that arrow does, it’s very persistent in the 2D content, so the only other option is the green arrow.

First view in AR mode

Side note: The arrow in the top left seems a little out of sorts simply because it is very saturated and has a heavy glow on it — maybe tone down that radioactivity.

2nd size option selected

Once you place the track on a horizontal plane a few more options show up on the screen. You have the top left with the camera icon. This takes a screenshot of the train track. It is way easier than trying to take a screenshot with the hardware buttons — nice work there. There is also 3 buttons in the button right. The first button selected is the default size of the track. The next one above makes it 3x larger (I’m guessing here) and the top button makes it about 5–6 times larger. This is one of my favorite part of the experience. I can put my camera right on the track and have Thomas run right through. The immersion of the big track is awesome!

“Spooky Thomas” getting cleaned

An option they have in 2D mode is that you can “ride” from Thomas’ point of view (POV). I wish they would have included that in AR. It would be a huge engineering lift and may not even be possible with ARKit right now, so I understand why that is not an option.

One qualm I had is with the search button. You click it and think, “I’ll search for another Thomas to add or a another track.”

NOPE.

It brings you back to this screen.

While this screen and user flow is necessary — wrong icon. I can understand the thinking of using a familiar icon for kids and re-establishing it’s purpose in the AR space, but that is an easy way out and not a good UX flow. I think one of these icons would have been interesting to test out:

Icons from https://www.flaticon.com

Also, to note, you have to go back into 2D mode to change train tracks or add another Thomas.

Planes, Trains, and Animations

The plane detection is brilliant. In my own prototyping experience, ARKit goes a great job of this. I was easily able to detect a table that is 4ft tall then switch right to the floor with no issue.

Plane detection from table to floor

The trains in this game are awesome! A friend of mine has a kid who has every single Thomas Mini known to man and then some (and tells me all their names every time I come over). So it was pretty neat seeing these come alive digitally. I only spent time unlocking 3 of the trains, but the rest of them are probably equally as amazing.

The animations on the trains and on the track environment were very well done. A train doing a 360 over a river is no small task.

This app gets a solid “trains up” from me, however, they aren’t doing anything super fancy in AR — the app detects a plane and adds a track (which is otherwise created and animated in the 2D mode of the app). That being said, the novelty of having Thomas in my living room is awesome. There are some UX issues I would like to see solved in AR (search icon, more building options, etc.), but overall “the kids” will love it.

AR UX-Review: Thomas and Friends was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

AR UX-Review: Thomas and Friends

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