Snapchat - Snap AR
Nourish is an uplifting AR experience developed for Snapchat, conceived and executed as part of an exclusive AR residency program. An engaging lens for establishing healthy habits.
Snapchat's AR Creator Residency was an intensive, fast-paced initiative built to fuel creative innovation with Snap’s evolving AR platform. I was selected as one of the creators through a competitive application process.
During the residency, I created Nourish, an interactive Snap Lens designed to promote healthy habits by combining storytelling, gamified choices, and machine learning.
My contributions extended beyond design and interaction, I quickly built a proof of concept, collaborated with Snap’s ML and game engine developers and delivered a highly engaging Snap Lens. Following the residency, I continued developing AR experiences as an Official Snap Lens Creator.
PROCESS
Rapid Ideation > AR Interaction Design > Machine Learning Integration > User Testing > Iteration > Launch
GOAL
Design an engaging and educational AR experience that encourages healthy daily habits among Snapchat’s global audience. The experience needed to be lightweight, visually striking, and optimized for fast user interaction.
CHALLENGE
This was a project with limited time, requiring me to wear multiple hats: designer, developer, and strategist. I had to:
Rapidly learn Lens Studio’s technical constraints and AR capabilities.
Prototype interactions that could respond dynamically to real-world image inputs.
Integrate lightweight machine learning logic that could personalize the experience.
Design for delight with a tone that felt playful, not preachy.
By the end of the program, Nourish had been launched and highlighted in the residency showcase, and I continued collaborating with Snap as part of their Official Creator network.
PROCESS
DISCOVERY/ RESEARCH
In the initial brainstorming sessions, we explored various approaches to motivate users, but the concept truly crystallized when we envisioned characters that reside invisibly in one's personal space, awaiting activation via scanning specific items.
After doing a tech feasibility research, we decided to leverage ML models together with Snap developers. This way we enabled an environment-sensitive interactivity.
Through our secondary research about people's motivational pain points and activities that promote healthy habits we decided to focus on nutrition, exercise and sleep.
USER FLOW & WIREFRAMES & PROTOTYPE
In pursuit of an intuitive and captivating user experience, we meticulously crafted a series of wireframes to visualize the lens' flow.
Recognizing that we had mere seconds to engage the user's attention, these wireframes served as essential blueprints.
To further refine our concept and secure developer buy-in, we constructed a prototype that vividly illustrated the lens's intended user journey, thus solidifying our design process.
ASSETS & INTERACTIONS
We initiated the creative process by sketching out characters, each designed to represent motivational words associated with our project's thematic subjects. Our initial choices - "Achieve", "Dream" and "Commit" - prompted us to realize the need for created and animating an extensive roster of characters. To streamline the process, we decided to derive words directly from our project's title, "Nourish", settling on "Rise", "Sense" and "Run" and built them in Cinema 4D.
Recognizing our limitations in character animation and rigging, we collaborated with Flipside XR, utilizing their creator tool Flipside Studio - a specialized tool for VR-based motion capture. You can see the characters animated here.
POLISHING & PUBLISHING THE LENS
Once we had our MVP, we tested the lens with the internal team as well as a few selected users. We rapidly iterated based on feedback.
After polishing the interactions and optimizing the animations we published the lens on Snapchat.
CONCLUSION
This project sharpened my ability to rapidly problem-solve, prototype, and design under real-world constraints, all while keeping user experience at the core.
The goal was to create an AR experience that could act as a light-touch motivational tool, especially in moments when healthy choices feel out of reach. By combining interactive storytelling with emerging AR and ML technologies, I was able to deliver a playful yet purposeful experience.
Despite a tight timeline, I successfully developed and launched a compelling proof of concept that earned internal support and positive user feedback. Following the residency, I continued my work as an Official Lens Creator, building on this momentum to craft even more engaging AR experiences.
