Jewelry Window Display Black Box ,
an innovative window display for jewelry stores.
2016
The brief was to to create a proposal for an interactive project to create innovative experiences for retail concepts.
Everyday in Paris, I used to pass by Place Vendome to get to my university in Tuileries. As much as I enjoyed window shopping, I did not have enough time to admire the beautiful gems that were in display. Unfortunately my courses would end in the evening and my walk back home wasn't as glamorous as it was in the morning.
It is a shame that on top of having less clientele exposure, these shops are missing on a big marketing stunt that covers around 12 missed hours of the night.
Following this brief's initiative, I decided to find a clever and interactive solution to these empty window displays.
The goal of this project is to present a concept for jewellers window displays that allows users to manipulate gems without shop owners having to go through fear, theft or damage ( As shown in the video above).
To tackle this project I initially needed to understand the user personas for this idea. I conducted a series of different research to narrow them down. To make this process a bit more interesting I transformed the finding in a Java code using particles as metrics in Processing (as shown in photo and video below).
The research was done using a focus group of 32 people with different backgrounds. The age category varied between 20-45years old.
After narrowing down my personas, I researched holograms, the history and the different techniques used to make the most interactive concepts. It is no secret that, with the resources that were available to me at the time I landed on the reflection hologram technique or Pepper's ghost.
I used sharp plexiglass and wood to create a box to hold the mechanism together. I used a led screen display the virtual object that would be represented (As shown below).
For the visuals, I tried different representation techniques: .obj files of rings and I photographed real life rings to use as samples.
After multiple prototypes and multiples user testings, the hologram worked. I was now going to jump on the interactivity of the project.
I glued a LeapMotion sensor to the front of the box and programmed it to : Swipe left and right and zoom.