SHAKE IT
AND UNCOVER
THE
UNKNOWN
Application overview
Created to uncover and learn the lesser known facts of history, this application brings historical figures to life by displaying their iconic look on the face of the user. The application uses face tracking technology through the iOS ARKit plugin for Xcode and Soonin's open-sourced projects to identify and track the position and movements of face muscles, updating the data collected in real time. The character sets can be changed by shaking the phone or, in case the shaking phone movement is not registered, clicking the 'Shake it!' phone button next to the character information on the bottom panel. The application has been created in Swift, is compatible with and has been tested on iPhone X and contains 3 character sets. Each set consists of assets to recreate the character's iconic look (for instance Himmler's glasses or Pilsudski's moustache), the character's name, and an interesting fact about the historical figure.
DISCOVER THE APP
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Play the video to discover more!
SHAKE IT TO FIND NEW CONTENT
The application is easy to use and to make the experience more enjoyable the core interaction is based on a phone shaking gesture in opposition to clicking or swiping.
THE CONTEXT AND VALUE
The application was developed with the aim of proposing a new and more entertaining way of re-telling and expanding historical knowledge through reflective information (uncommon facts about the (in)famous historical figures) and fun activities. Shake it! has was created to objectively present historical figures that shaped revolutions in their times without leaving iconic characters out due to their controversy. The design and mechanics have been focused on making the application easy to use based on prior knowledge and familiarity with popular messaging and social networking applications using camera filters (e.g. Snapchat or Instagram).
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The idea behind displaying these facts is to encourage the users to learn new information about significant historical figures (traditional opinions of which are subjective depending on the country or culture) and reflect on these figures again. Following the context and theme of the app, the value it provides is mainly sociocultural as it is based on culture-dependent controversies and prompts the users to reflect once again on their society and culture perception of certain historical figures.
ENJOY THE FILETRS
Have fun and learn history!
CONTROVERSY AND DESIGN
The various historical figure assets seen within Shake it! were designed based on the iconic reference imagery and refined into a simplified 'cartoon-like' design. This style helps to not overbear the user with overly detailed drawings. The full black colour palette was also chosen as it provided a silhouette-like style, opening up the opportunity for the user to utilise the historical figures as masquerade masks and fully immerse themselves within the application.
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The content chosen was based on its controversy and potential reception of the historical figures, including figures both seen as positive and negative to balance the level of potential controversy out. In order to achieve that, 3 characters have been selected: Heinrich Himmler, Jozef Pilsudski and Joseph Stalin. Himmler (the character asset above on the left) was a leading member of the Nazi party and the right hand of Adolf Hitler. Therefore he has been chosen as the negative historical figure. Jozef Pilsudski (the character set above in the middle) was the First Marshall of Poland and the main Polish politician actively working to grant voting right to women. Due to that he was selected as the positive character. Joseph Stalin (the character set above on the right) was a Communist Party leader and Soviet Union dictator under whose leadership the Soviet Union fought on both the Axis and then the Allies sides. This historical figure has different receptions, both positive and negative and therefore has been chosen as the controversial one. All the figures have been involved in revolutions, each one in a different one following different ideologies. All characters have been provided with uncommon and funny history facts about them in order to help the users reflect again on them and prompt the users to grow interest in history in a more entertaining way.