The City of Cupertino, California, known as the headquarters of technology giants like Apple, is a beautiful, thriving community with many natural public spaces and historic parks. Many of the largest tech companies in the world (including Google, Intel, Adobe, Facebook, and Netflix) are headquartered within ten miles of the Cupertino City limits. It makes sense that a community so rich in high tech talent would pursue a mobile application to connect visitors with the many beautiful and historic spaces located there. But who would Cupertino select to develop a fun and intuitive mobile app, powered by Augmented Reality?
The City of Cupertino pursued several media development teams for the creation of their Parks Walk AR mobile application. Drawing on expertise in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, the city examined a variety of possible technology partners for the project. Based upon our experience and past work, Cupertino selected Balance Studios to develop their app! We designed and implemented an augmented reality (AR) application to guide visitors through a fun and educational activity featuring public art in the city.
ARTour
Our team developed a mobile application using Augmented Reality (AR) to provide an interactive art walk, highlighting 15 artworks across the city. Users choose between three different languages—English, Hindi or Mandarin, and users activate the AR program by pointing their phone at uniquely designed plaques placed near each featured public art piece.
The application opens with a map of Cupertino, identifying the featured works in the Art Walk and providing navigational support to each location. Augmented Reality content then appears in the form of a text and images in AR space. Spoken text supplements the onscreen text and supports the application’s use by hearing-impaired users.
Content for each work of art includes:
- Details about each specific work of art (medium, dimensions, commissioner)
- Information about the artist
- Additional works by the artist
- An expanded Parks amenities list
To make the experience more fun and provide ease of use, our team created a 3D animated character named Cooper, who serves as Cupertino’s robot mascot, to provide added guidance to users of the application. Cooper is a delightful, whimsical character who supports the user’s engagement with artworks featured in the program. You can even dance with him!