History X
What if you can travel back in time through your phone? Well, that’s the mission of History X!
It’s an app that wants to help people better engage with history by allowing them to access a layer of location-based, augmented historical content through their mobile devices for the cities and places they live and travel to. It’s like the “Pokemon Go” of History.
Problem
People explore cities but miss opportunities to truly learn the story behind the places they come across. We believe that the ability to augment a historical perspective on whenever people visit or explore places would add value to their experience.
Solution Approach
I first identified targeted personas and then developed customer journeys for each:
Open-minded Travelers: They want to explore off-beaten paths
Local History Buffs: They want to grow deeper in their connection to place
City Business Improvement Districts: They use history as a catalyst to attract visitors and locals
Then I designed a backend system for gathering and storing data. This will hold all data and components of geospatially mapping history. This included rich media assets, location data, and eventually augmented reality spatial assets.
The user-facing iOS app was then designed. Given the budget restrictions at the time, the initial beta version had minimal AR elements and focused on mapping historical stories with a feature of being able to filter the map by historical topics (Black History, Discoveries, Wars, Famous Events, etc).
Results
In the first week of launching, we had 200 beta users sign up. Users were interested in the stories and found the ability to filter by historical topics the most appealing, mostly so they can connect to stories that are based on their interests and identity. We also found open doors and partnerships with local tour guides and museums, as a way to extend their exhibits and add interactivity to tours.
Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, external-facing operations were scaled down.