Discovering Little Shepherds’ Stories

An immersive app that unveils the hidden stories of Aljustrel about the Little Shepherds’ lives, told through Augmented Reality

About the project

If someone had told me six months before I started this project that I would create an app related to the Little Shepherds of Fátima, I would have said, “That’s impossible.” But guess what? It happened.

Aljustrel is a village located in the Fátima Municipality, known as the birthplace of the Little Shepherds of Fátima. This village played an important role in their story and the Miracle of Fátima. To honor this heritage, the Aljustrel Village launched an initiative to enhance visitor experiences by sharing these historical stories through an interactive digital experience.

I worked on this project through ByAR – Augmented Your Reality. As a team member, my role was UX and UI designer.

The project’s scope encompassed:

discovery phase;
visual Identity concept;
proto-personas;
information architecture;
wireframes;
UI Kit;
prototyping.

Research and Discovery Phase

The first and crucial phase of the project is research. This is the basis for all the other parts of the work so it should be solid. At this stage, several key questions needed to be answered to proceed with the work:

Who is the target audience? Research showed that the majority of visitors to Fátima are Portuguese (70%) and over 50 years old (50%), with Spanish and Italian tourists also being significant groups.
What is the problem? Aljustrel has a wealth of stories about the Little Shepherds, but there is no accessible, engaging, or easy-to-use platform to share them.
What are the key features and functionalities?
– Interactive Map: A navigation tool for users to follow a structured route through Aljustrel.
– Augmented Reality (AR) Experience: At each point of interest, an AR character narrates the significance – of that location in the Little Shepherds’ lives.
– Institutional Information: Important historical and cultural details.
– Multilingual Support: The app is available in Portuguese and English.

Visual Identity concept

Since Aljustrel belongs to the Ourém Municipality, which has its own branding guidelines, the app must to align with its visual identity. So I created a mood based on it and adapted it to the app theme.

Proto-personas, representing the user

Based on audience research, I created user personas to guide the design process:

For this project, I created profiles for three personas:

João Pereira (51 years old) – Scout Leader & High School Teacher. He enjoys organizing outdoor activities using online maps. His main frustrations include limited route options, complex apps, and unclear instructions.
Emily Thompson (35 years old) – Travel Blogger from Spain. She loves exploring off-the-beaten-path locations. Her main frustrations include boring content, lack of engaging features, and limited language options.
Sofia Martins (16 years old) – History Enthusiast & Tech-Savvy User from Lisbon. She enjoys interactive learning but dislikes long texts, non-intuitive designs, and the lack of technology integration in history apps.

Information Architecture

The app structure was simple yet effective. To ensure clarity, I developed a sitemap and user flow diagrams.

Site Map

Map: Contains a Route with multiple Points of Interest (POIs), each providing directions, and information with an Augmented Reality experience.
Points of Interest: Lists specific locations, each offering directions, and information with an Augmented Reality experience.
Information: Includes details about the Little Shepherds’ story, Aljustrel, and institutional information.
Language: Supports English and Portuguese.

User flow

Onboarding: Users select a language and view instructions.
Home: Provides access to Route Display, Points of Interest, Info, and Language selection.
Directions: Users navigate through the route with point navigation, augmented reality prompts, and instructions.
Augmented Reality: Users experience AR interactions, align images, play AR content, and receive navigation prompts.
Info: Contains details about Aljustrel, the Little Shepherds’ story, and institutional information.
Language: Users can switch between English and Portuguese.

Wireframing

At this stage, I transformed the information architecture into visual layouts. Wireframing helped define the best arrangement for essential elements on each screen. Due to the tight project deadline, only key screens were wireframed.

Identify key elements – pinpoint the most crucial information and interactions for each screen;
Establish visual hierarchy – determine the relative importance of design elements;
Uncover connections – discover hidden relationships between screens and streamline the user flow.

UI Kit

Since Aljustrel belongs to the Ourém Municipality, which has its own branding guidelines, the app needed to align with its visual identity.

I researched Ourém’s website, social media, and brand book to ensure visual consistency. The UI design incorporated:

Brand Colors
Typography
Shapes & Other Design Elements

The Prototype

While developing the interactive prototype, I improved usability by:

Displaying distance indicators for each Point of Interest.
Adding subtitles to videos for enhanced accessibility.

I conducted a heuristic evaluation and user tests with five tech-savvy participants. Tasks were successfully completed, proving the app was intuitive and user-friendly.

The result was an immersive, user-friendly app that tells historical stories through Augmented Reality, bringing the Little Shepherds’ journey to life in key locations.