The Research Challenge

Traditional cultural museums face a critical engagement gap with digital-native generations (Gen Z and Gen Alpha). Artifact exhibitions are historically static, relying on a "look but don't touch" model. For international audiences, this friction is multiplied: information is frequently displayed in small, dense blocks of text in the national language only.

To solve this, Dr. Rehman required an immersive, educational mobile application designed specifically to make exploring complex, high-value cultural artifacts fully interactive.

The Objective

To engineer and deploy a production-ready mobile application within a strict two-month sprint. The app needed to seamlessly combine an Augmented Reality (AR) viewing engine with curated research documentation, bilingual English/Indonesian support,, and multimedia video content.

🎨 Design Approach: Component Architecture

While the initial research sprint focused heavily on rapid functional deployment inside Unity, the interface was later systematically refactored into a standardized, scalable Figma Component Design System to secure design continuity and ease future cross-platform development.

Component Standardization & State Management

To streamline the app's multi-feature interface (AR tracking, video modules, and research documentation), the modern Figma design architecture implements strict State Management using Component Variants :

• State-Driven UI Semantics: Every interactive element—including navigation controls, asset description tabs, and video blocks—was reverse-engineered into discrete Default and Selected states. This establishes a clean, predictable visual feedback loop for users.

• Bilingual Localization Infrastructure: Dedicated component variants were mapped out for language-switching toggles, allowing international students to seamlessly shift text metadata between English and Indonesian.

• Modular Layout Cards: Media distribution blocks (YouTube video embedding modules, dynamic research abstract cards, and event banners) were structured using strict structural rules to ensure text-wrapping did not break UI constraints across varying mobile screen ratios.

🛠️ 3. Engineering & Deployment Lifecycle

The engineering backend was completely developed, optimized, and deployed utilizing Unity 3D and the Vuforia Engine to handle real-world image target tracking.

The Cross-Border Asset Pipeline

The application utilized real-world data collection through an international academic collaboration. Research partners in Indonesia conducted the physical 3D scanning of authentic museum artifacts, processing the raw point-cloud data into Blender before handing the files over to our team for Unity integration.

By mapping these 3D meshes natively onto Vuforia spatial targets, the system allowed students to project, rotate, and interactively view the digital artifacts on their mobile screens—effectively bypassing physical "do not touch" museum constraints. Alongside the AR engine, the application housed dedicated video modules and research tabs to give students a deep-dive contextual understanding of the artifacts' history.

📈 Validated Research Outcomes

While data collection was executed on-site with students from a school in Jakarta by the collaborating Indonesian research team, I served as the analytical engineering support to process the quantitative user data for Dr. Rehman.

• Measurable Educational Impact: Across two distinct academic validation studies, the deployment of the AR Keris application yielded an average 54% increase in student learning outcomes regarding historical artifact recognition and cultural comprehension.

• System Validation: The empirical data verified that replacing dense, static physical placards with responsive, state-driven UI modules successfully neutralized the historical engagement barriers observed in Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics.

🧠 Post-Mortem & Future Engineering Upgrades

Moving From Static Assets to Dynamic Architecture

While the current version perfectly fulfilled the short-term requirements of the research sprint, keeping an educational app relevant requires constant content updates. Relying on hardcoded assets inside the app build means that any new research paper, community event, or 3D scan requires a developer to manually recompile and push a completely new update—creating a clear operational bottleneck for long-term museum use.

My Engineering Roadmap for Next-Gen Iterations:

• Admin Authentication & CMS Integration: The top priority for the next iteration is engineering a secure Admin Login System. This portal will connect the app to a live database, empowering museum researchers to instantly upload latest events, update research papers, or swap out 3D Keris assets in real-time without needing a developer to touch the source code.

• Geospatial UI Navigation: To replace the current layout of simple text-based province buttons on the collection page, the front-end will incorporate an interactive, vector-mapped geographic exploration layout, allowing students to tap regions on a map to visually summon that province’s localized artifact collection.

📂 Explore My Other Work