Development of an Augmented Reality App Concept for Fein GmbH

By Stefan Riehle, Yijian Lan & Alexander Kübler — One-Week Strategic Design Workshop.

Project Briefing

In a one-week workshop, the company Fein would like to have concepts for the communication of different product characteristics. This concept should help the customer to obtain relevant information quickly and easily and to make products comparable. How we tackle the task is entirely up to us.

Fein GmbH

Solution

The Fein-Augmented Reality-App enables customers to conveniently use Fein services and retrieve general digital information about physical products. The AR Camera feature provides details about accessories and the exact introduction and operation of products. The camera scans the shape, color and details of a product and can thus determine exactly which fine product it is. As a result, the app can map important information to the products in real time and offers Fein customers a completely new product experience.

Augmented Information App-Concept

You can play around with the blue slider below to get a feeling for the difference between a Fein product with and without the AR-App. This example only displays digital product-specific features. Through the app you have countless other options to retrieve augmented content and get to know the fine products in a completely new way.

Fein product without and with the AR-App-Feature

Prototype Features
  • Real Time Equipment Placement and Testing – The AR-product recognition of the App detects the available accessories for a scanned product and thus allows real time digital placement and testing of the accessories.
  • New Product experiences through AR – Augmented Reality can fundamentally extend the product experience with a meaningful use of the technology. Virtual content in combination with the real world allows users to experience the brand and its products in a new way, which of course can also benefit companies that produce physical products as a differentiation to the competition.
Process

Apart from the detailed briefing, the process of our one-week Fein project was identical to our SWIFT project. Here, too, we focused on a quick topic focus, iterative ideas and their concept-like implementation with a concluding short presentation.

Team
  • Stefan Riehle (Strategic & Industrial Designer);
  • Yijian Lan (Strategic & Interaction Designer);
  • Me (Strategic & Interaction Designer)
My Role
  • Strategy Development
  • Icon Design
  • AR Mockups
  • Sketching

Our Project Process

1. Kick off

We as a team are convinced that the customer experience is and always will be the true brand differentiator and that is what makes good design so valuable and indispensable.

And exactly this conviction was the reason for us as designers to create a concept to improve the customer experience of the Fein GmbH.

By Kalyn Smith - Dribbble

2. Research

We started with a detailed analysis of the Fein brand, its values, stakeholders and competition. This analysis served as a further course of the project as we were thus able to assign specific opportunities and weaknesses.

Brand Research

Then we looked at different parts of the customer journey and thought about how we want to support Fein with the possible technologies and trends.

3. Synthesis

Our research has shown that Fein is a company that focuses on customer loyalty, quality and technical innovation. What is missing is the focus of brands and product experiences away from the use of the devices and, moreover, an important integration of digital innovations.

In order to remain future-proof without renouncing the well-known quality we consider it useful to combine technological innovations with existing products and services. As a result, Fein can not only retain existing customers, but can also attract new groups of buyers such as younger generations.

To achieve these goals, our short project focused on developing a new product experience and integrating smarter customer service.

Focus Points

4. Ideation and Prototyping

As an opportunity for a new product experience with fine products, we have seen the technology Augmented Reality. Reasons for the technology include:

  • New presentation methods (customizability)
  • Proximity to the product = interactive communication between user and brand
  • New experience of products
  • Connects the analogous to the digital world = meaningful display of supplementary information

So we started to sketch ideas for implementing Augmented Reality Features. For the prototyping and a real testability of our ideas we used Unity 3D in connection with the Google Pixel 2.

Ideation and Prototyping

Conclusion

As a professional and world leading brand, today you can no longer just stand for the quality of your products. You also have to offer your customers a holistic and unique brand/product experience and that is exactly what we wanted to achieve. In our concept, we have mainly focused on creating new experiences for customers and potential buyers of fine products through the use of new technologies.

Fein Augmented Information App

But technology should never be the basic idea to create better customer experiences, it should always be a means to an end, to give the customer a better experience and to enrich her/his life in a manner.

Because it's like Steve Jobs once said “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology, not the other way around.”

Thanks for your interest–If you have questions and are more interested in our project feel free to send an email or contact me on LinkedIn.