Artlens

ArtLens is an AI-powered artistic camera focused on style transfer, allowing users to transform portraits into stunning works of art. Utilizing advanced AI technology, it supports various artistic styles, including classic oil painting, anime, and abstract art, offering users a wide range of creative possibilities. Specializing in static photo processing, ArtLens accurately captures facial features and seamlessly blends them with artistic styles to create unique AI-driven portraits, turning every photo into a piece of art.
As an innovative tool, ArtLens is perfect for personalized portraits and social sharing, while also serving as a creative platform for art enthusiasts and creators. With its intuitive interface and powerful style transfer capabilities, users can easily produce artistic photos without requiring professional skills, unlocking their creative potential and adding a touch of artistry to everyday life.

Duration

8 weeks
(September to November 2024)

Tools

Figma, Adobe,Tripo,ComfyUI,Python,UIzard, Photoshop, Procreate

My role

User Research, Concept Development, Interface Design, Visual Design,Hardware design, software API programming

Technological changes

“AI Camera combines AIGC interface and edge computing technology to put professional special effects front and center in everyone's hands, allowing users to generate blockbuster-quality photos and videos without post-processing.” The AI camera combines AIGC interface technology and native edge computing technology, allowing complex image processing and special effects generation to be done in real time. This technological advancement enables the production of special effects, which traditionally required green screen and professional post-processing, to be front-loaded into the shooting session, allowing users to take photos and videos with unique styles and professional effects without any background knowledge.

Market transformation

Background research

Questionnaire research (100 copies) User interviews: a questionnaire survey was conducted with target users (content creators, social media users and brand marketers) to understand their pain points and needs in the content creation process.

Background research

Questionnaire research (100 copies)

User interviews: a questionnaire survey was conducted with target users (content creators, social media users and brand marketers) to understand their pain points and needs in the content creation process.

opportunity

High creation threshold: ordinary users lack professional skills and complex post-production experience, making it difficult to produce high-quality digital content.

High time cost: professional creators need to invest a lot of time and effort in content production for video editing and image retouching, making it difficult to achieve rapid output.

Lack of personalized expression: Many existing cameras and shooting tools have limited functionality and cannot effectively help users achieve unique stylized content creation, especially in real-time generation and application of AI effects.

Lack of physical interaction: I hope the camera can have the function of selecting pictures for printing.

Limitations of hardware and cloud computing power: traditional camera devices cannot

User profile

Questionnaire research (100 copies)

Key Findings:

2. Diversified demand for creative content: Users want to generate different styles of AI images and video effects to meet the needs of different scenarios (e.g., travel, party, brand promotion), which puts high demands on the diversity and flexibility of AI models.

3. Technical threshold is the main obstacle: ordinary users are confused by the existing complex editing software and want a more easy-to-use tool that can realize high-quality content creation through simple operation.

4. Hardware portability combined with cloud computing power: Users want camera hardware to be portable and to be able to utilize cloud computing power for complex AI calculations, thus enabling efficient, real-time content generation.

Target user

Target Users:
Art enthusiasts and content creators: including short video bloggers, photographers, artists, etc. AetLens can help them realize real-time and efficient AI content creation, shorten the production cycle, improve the quality of the content, while providing the appearance and creation experience that pays tribute to the classic art of photography.
Social media users: Ordinary users who like to share moments in their lives can generate high-quality, creative and vintage art-style images and videos with AetLens, making it easy for them to create a unique personal style.
Brands and Marketers: Marketers who want to leverage AI technology to inject creative content into their brands, AetLens can help them quickly create visual content for social media and enhance the impact of their brand stories.

Li Ming, 28, short video blogger

- Demand: Want to be able to quickly generate high quality video content in

- in order to increase fan interaction and ratings.

Pain points: Traditional editing tools take a long time and require high professional skills.

Zhang Xiaoli, 24, active social media user - Need: Want to take creative pictures and videos with simple operations and share them with friends.   

Pain points: Existing shooting tools can't easily achieve creative effects and generate content that lacks personalization.  Pain points: Existing shooting tools cannot easily achieve creative effects, and the generated content lacks personalization.

Wang Qiang, 35, Brand Marketing Manager

Demand: The need to quickly produce visual content for brand campaigns to meet the demands of a fast-paced market.

Pain point: Lack of an easy-to-use tool to generate creative content in real time.

Key Findings:

1. Strong user demand for real-time content generation: Many users expressed their wish to see the application of AI effects while shooting, which can reduce the burden of post-production and improve creative efficiency.
2. Diversified demand for creative content: Users want to generate different styles of AI images and video effects to meet the needs of different scenarios (e.g., travel, party, brand promotion), which puts high demands on the diversity and flexibility of AI models.
3. Technical threshold is the main obstacle: ordinary users are confused by the existing complex editing software and want a more easy-to-use tool that can realize high-quality content creation through simple operation.
4. Hardware portability combined with cloud computing power: Users want camera hardware to be portable and to be able to utilize cloud computing power for complex AI calculations, thus enabling efficient, real-time content generation.

Concept generation

1. AI real-time creation function: AetLens can generate various stylized images and video effects in real time during the shooting process through cloud computing power and the built-in ComfyUI generative AI model. For example, users can choose different art style filters and see the effect directly when shooting without post-processing.

2. Hardware Portability and Intelligent Control: The camera adopts a lightweight design, making it easy to carry around. The device has a built-in intelligent control system that supports voice command operation. Users can realize shooting, switching filters and other functions through simple voice commands, which enhances the convenience of the usage experience.

ArtLensPRD:

Goal Definition:

Lower the threshold of creation: through a simple and intuitive user interface and smart AI templates, help ordinary users easily realize high-quality content creation and reduce the dependence on professional skills.

Technology to achieve the purpose:

- Simple and easy to use: the interface is designed to be simple and intuitive, so users can get started without a complicated learning process. Diversified style generation: provide a variety of AI style filters and effects to meet the needs of different creative needs.
- Diversified style generation: provide a variety of AI style filters and effects to meet the creative needs of different users.
- Real-time feedback: real-time preview of AI effects through the camera screen, reducing the burden of post-processing and improving creative efficiency.

Select the optimal concept:

After analyzing user needs and market competitors, the core concept of AetLens focuses on “real-time AI creation” and “portability”. These two core concepts can effectively solve the pain points of users in the process of content creation, making AetLens a smart camera product with obvious competitiveness.

For this reason I've wrapped the AI Camera Agent into a single vintage camera button that can be clicked in the camera's interface

Emulate retro camera style with ai +comfyUI

Hardware internal chip display

Agile Manufacturing Plant

AI 3D modeling

The final form of the product

User Journey Map

Process sorting:

1. Discover (discovery phase)
Users are first introduced to the concept of AI cameras when they see an advertisement in their daily browsing. The ad successfully attracts the user's attention through compelling content, and the user becomes interested and places an order for the camera.

User Behavior: Seeing an ad -> Becoming interested -> Purchasing an order
Emotion curve: Neutral experience (ordinary interest) at the initial stage, with the success of the order, the user's emotion gradually increases.
Product behavior: advertisement promotion, user order process.
However, after receiving the product, the user sees a negative review, leading to a drop in sentiment and expectations of the product begin to suffer.

2. Use (use stage)
Users begin to use the camera and discover the uniqueness of its features. During the experience, the user interacts and plays games with friends through the camera's smart features and tries to use the built-in function of printing photos. These features are designed to deliver a novel and fun experience with gradually improving emotions.

User Behavior: Interacting with friends -> Discovering the print photos feature
Emotion curve: Gradually climbed from a low point due to negative reviews, especially with the surprise of the new features, the experience reached a high point.
Product Behavior: Embodiment of printing function and interaction function.

3. Share (sharing stage)
Users explore more ways to play with the AI camera and share the experience and results with friends. Subsequently, users use the social media function to share with one click, allowing their creative work to receive likes and positive feedback. The user's emotion peaks at this stage, especially after receiving many likes and positive feedbacks, which further deepens the favorable impression of the product.

User behavior: sharing scene -> one-click sharing -> getting likes
Emotion curve: User experience reaches its peak at this stage, and the satisfaction of sharing and social feedback further enhance positive emotions.
Product behavior: convenient sharing function and high quality social interaction.

4. Feedback
Users start to share the brand value, recommend AI camera to more friends, and build up the brand community through continuous interaction, gradually transforming from ordinary users to brand advocates.

User behavior: share brand value -> build community
Emotional curve: users maintain a high level of emotional state and gradually form loyalty and emotional connection to the brand.
Product Behavior: Product empowers brand value and inspires active participation of users.

product rendering

Project Reflection

What’s Next?

Design Optimization: When I was working on the ArtLens project, I really felt the charm of combining art and technology, and it was very fulfilling. However, in the actual process, I found some shortcomings, such as the interface design may not be friendly enough for some users, and some complex functions are not clear to people at a glance. The portability of the device also makes me feel that it limits the experience scenarios, especially when it needs to work with specific hardware. In terms of technical implementation, processing data in real time made me feel quite stressed, but I have also gained a lot of experience.
Technical improvements：Although users are interested in content richness and interaction, I think there is still a lot of room for improvement, such as how to make the information more understandable and attractive. Next, I will think more from the user's point of view and try to optimize the overall experience with more compatible hardware and smart recommendation functions. This project is a good attempt for me, but it also shows me what I can work on.

Final design:

1. Hardware design: AetLens is made of lightweight aluminum alloy, combined with an ergonomic grip design to ensure user comfort during prolonged use. The back of the camera is equipped with a high-resolution touch screen, which is convenient for users to view and operate in real time.

2. Software Functions:
- AI filter real-time preview: Users can view the effect of different AI filters in real time while shooting, which is convenient for quick selection.
- Multi-mode support: Including portrait mode, landscape mode, night mode, etc., each mode integrates specific AI optimization functions.
- Cloud Collaboration and Sharing: Users can upload their creations to the cloud with one click to collaborate with team members or share them directly to social media.

Feature Description:
- Real-time AI generation: With AI models supported by cloud computing power, AetLens is able to generate images and video effects in real-time during the shooting process, eliminating the need for tedious post-processing.
- Personalized recommendation: the built-in AI assistant will recommend the most suitable shooting modes and filter effects based on the user's creative history and preferences.

Technical realization:
- Hardware part: the camera uses a high-performance image sensor combined with an AI-accelerated chip to ensure fast processing and application of filter effects during shooting.
- Software part: Using cloud-based AI generation model, combined with local intelligent optimization algorithms to achieve low-latency real-time effect preview.