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AR Awareness Campaign

February 7, 2020 – May 5, 2020

The goal of this AR campaign is to create awareness of African-American women die from pregnancy-related causes at a rate 3.3 times higher than those of white women and lead to more advocacy for better health care, communication and support.

For ways to get involved, please visit https://4kira4moms.com

Overview and Demo

Using augmented reality, the lives of 5 women, Tashonna Ward, Kira Johnson, Audrey Lockett LaBranche, Lashonda Hazard, and Amber Isaac, are celebrated. Upon tapping their photos, their unique stories give insights to who they were as women and mothers, and the circumstances that led to their pregnancy-related death.

Process

01. Inspiration

Focus on the problem or the opportunity that motivates the search for solutions.

This initiated as an exercise in oversimplifying something extremely complicated. I chose pregnancy because as an African American woman in America, I know that I am more likely not to survive a pregnancy of childbirth due to medical bias and insufficient care. How amazing would it be if that was not the case, to guarantee life for not just for the baby, but the mother as well with just a simple machine. I created a promo video for it, and when given the opportunity to expand, I conducted more research.

Poof Concept Video

02. Ideation

Develop the process of generation-development-test of ideas

In conceptualizing a revised version of this project, I aimed to bring attention to the real life fear of dying during childbirth that African American women experience due to biases in the medical industry. The keywords I chose to target were “Black woman pregnancy death,” “medical biases,” “racial disparities.” I came up with the following directions:

– Body paint and print 3d models of multiple generations of a woman
– Diversity and Inclusion in All Realities
– Post apocalyptic world
– Nightmares come true
– Introduce physical items ie items to crawl on skin
– Narrative: You are a Black woman going experiencing all of your fears

I initially chose to go with “nightmares come true,” and went so far as to plan the entire story and collect assets. However, it lacked the personability I desired. Due to Covid, my access to the resources and equipment necessary to build this out in virtual reality was limited. In order to test properly and meet my own deadlines, I decided to make my medium augmented reality and find a new way to bring awareness to this issue.

I decided to create an AR A photo wall, similar to what you find in someone’s home, of the women we have lost to preventable pregnancy-related causes. I stated researching women to include, and I wish I could have included them all. I limited it to five people and then started on the sketching.

Concept Sketching

03. Implementation

Project development and testing.

Using XCode and Reality Composer, I built out the final product.

Once a photo is tapped, in grows and centers to the screen. A card appears like that in an art gallery or museum along the side with information on that woman’s life. There is also a call to action for viewers to learn more and find how the can get involved. This was a very personal and emotional project, and I am so proud to have been able to create it and share it with my community.