Beypazarı AR Project
Gamified Interactive Map
A gamified AR map turning cultural exploration into a playful, interactive journey.
Turning an early design pivot into a functional location-based AR experience for discovering Beypazarı through its history and cultural identity®.
From a Tourism Brief to a Research-Led Product Direction
Beypazarı AR began through a collaboration between my university and Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, where students were asked to develop concepts that could introduce different regions of Ankara to visitors. I was assigned Beypazarı and initially approached the brief with a child-focused pixel-art game, based on the idea that cultural awareness could begin through play at an early age.
Feedback from my instructors challenged that direction. The concept was engaging, but its audience was too narrow for a destination-promotion experience intended to reach a broader range of visitors. Rather than continuing with the original idea, I reconsidered the target audience and began researching Beypazarı’s history, cultural identity, architecture, local products, and the different historical layers represented throughout the district.
That research changed the direction of the project. Instead of creating a campaign that simply told visitors what Beypazarı was known for, I wanted people to discover its stories while physically moving through the town. This led me to pivot the project from a child-focused game into a location-based augmented reality experience built around cultural exploration.
Connecting Digital Stories with Physical Places
I owned the complete design and development process, taking the project from research and concept development through UX/UI design, visual direction, AR interactions, and implementation as a functional application.
The experience was structured around selected historical and cultural locations throughout Beypazarı. Visitors could navigate to these points through the application and use location-specific markers to unlock digital content connected directly to the physical environment. Each interaction was designed to help users understand the historical or cultural significance of what they were seeing while experiencing it in its real-world context.
I developed the interface around visual references and motifs inspired by Beypazarı’s cultural identity so that the digital layer felt connected to the destination rather than functioning as a generic AR interface. The goal was to create a simple exploration loop: discover a location, visit it physically, unlock its story, and continue through the town.
I also extended the experience beyond the application by designing and developing an Instagram effect that visitors could use while exploring Beypazarı. The idea was to connect cultural discovery with social sharing, allowing visitors to create content from their experience and potentially introduce the destination to new audiences through their own networks.
The final result was a fully implemented location-based AR experience that combined tourism, historical storytelling, interaction design, and development within a single product.
Role / Ownership
Product Designer & AR Developer · End-to-End Ownership
Status / Focus
Functional AR Application · Tourism & Cultural Discovery
