Imagining the physical web

physical web
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffwilcox/7151463717
imagining the

https://www.flickr.com/photos/64503243@N06/19020417214/
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone
discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why
it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced
by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.
- Douglas Adams
“

https://www.flickr.com/photos/64503243@N06/19020417214/http://www.flickr.com/photos/ducdigital/2892313560
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone
discovers exactly what the web is for and why
it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced
by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.
- Douglas Adams
“

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ducdigital/2892313560
I believe one of the reasons we keep debating
whether the web is maybe or maybe not dying, is that
we aren’t yet certain how to use it to its full potential.

Humans are
actually pretty
rubbish at
predicting the
potential of a
technology. or
how it may ﬁt
into their lives.

Another example…
If this were the 1910s, we’d all be
talking about what an amazing life
we’d have if each of us could own
one of these…

…which kind of reminds
me of the way we still
often think of the web—as
a thing you bolt on (to
products, businesses or
processes) rather than a
thing that has the potential
to drive, enhance or
disrupt them.

This presentation will explore the possibilities and
opportunities of the physical web…

…an initiative* to create an open standard that extends
the web we know today into the physical world.
*started by Google, but open to everyone

I’m also hoping we can briefly consider what the web,
the browser and the ecosystems we’ve built around
them are really for.

And not just what they’re for
today—because what if—the web
is still at that “a motor for every
home” stage?
What if the uses and behaviours
that will truly deﬁne it are just
around the corner?

Image source: Wired
The number of smart devices is going
to explode, and the assumption that
each new device will require its own
application just isn't realistic.
We need a system that lets anyone
interact with any device at any time…
[this] isn’t about replacing native apps,
it’s about enabling interaction when
native apps just aren't practical.
— Scott Jenson, Physical Web Lead, Google
“

How does the physical web work?

A thing that wirelessly
broadcasts a URL:
https://something.com
Software on a device that
detects and displays the URL
when a user requests it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanito/5447525972
the technology is pretty simple,
and has just two main parts…
2
1

most often involves a small, low-power
Broadcasts data in the clear (i.e.
anyone can see it) using BLE: the
low-power version of Bluetooth
these days, broadcasting the URL
device called a beacon
Image source: Estimote
Coin battery
operated and
lasts up to
several years
Many sizes
and form
factors

to broadcast URLs could soon be
attached or embedded into all sorts of
smart and dumb things around us
Change my
colour!
Understand how
I work and where
to recycle me
Check what materials
i’m made of when
Craigslisting me.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/naan/2398024748
…but if all goes well, the ability
Permanently
broadcasts “I love you”
Turn me
off from a
distance

The software that detects and displays
URLs currently pushes discovery to the
lock screen (or Today Widget on iOS).
This is ﬁne right now, as there’s only a
few beacons around, but the intent is to
build a URL “discovery” interface right
into the browser*.
*…or in the case of Firefox OS, possibly the OS itself.

So…how might browser-based discovery work?

Disclaimer: These concepts *feel* plausible from a product perspective,
but were conceived without the help of Search engineers—some bits may
therefore be implausible* :-)
*…if you’re an engineer, we’d love to know which ones!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tamaleaver/6801803312

Haro Sushi and Izakaya
haro-sushi.com - Yummy Japanese food
McDonalds
mcdonalds.ca - Robson - Open 24 hours
West End Neighbourhood Map
yvr-westend.ca - Map - What’s here, What’s On
Search or type URL
BEACONSRECENT
More nearby beacons
BEACONS BOOKMARKTOP SITES
Search or enter address
haro-sushi.com
Hons on Robson
hons-noodles.com
Beacons are small devices that broadcast links
to web sites. Tap here to learn more
 
Politely sneak physical
web results into the
browser by automatically
displaying nearby
beacons on the search
home screen.
(This would work particularly well in
UIs such as Firefox on Android as
users don’t have to enter a keyword
for content to populate each tab.)
low hanging fruit :-)
Beacons?
Nearby? 
Something else?

17:24
Guu with Garlic - Guu Izakaya
haro-sushi.com - Enjoy fresh suchi and grilled me...
Hons on Robson
hons-noodles.com - Extensive menu featuring Can...
BEACONSWEB IMAGES MAPS VIDEOS
Izakaya
Alternatively, users could type a keyword
and view results by context.
(A potential challenge here is that the Beacon tab might often
be empty—something that was common in the early days of
the web, but is now almost unheard of.
A robust search engine could however use this opportunity to
suggest alternate results e.g. no Izakaya, but maybe sushi or
Thai street food.)
keyword-based search

guu-izakaya.com > robson
Mobile-friendly - Also called “Guu Robson”, this is
the second Guu to open. Discover delicious...
Rating: 9.2/10 = 96 votes - Price range: $$
McDonalds
mcdonalds.ca > robson
Popular times: Mondays
600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400
West End Neighbourhood Map
yvrwest-end.com
17:24
Search engines already hold an index of
content and associated metadata for URLs.
If a beacon’s domain/URL is known, why
not augment results with that indexed data?
•Known/indexed + knowledge graph: 
Site IA shortcuts, reviews, opening hours, related
images (basically anything you currently see on a
results “card”)
•Social graph: Further contextualised based on
social relationships.
•Temporal/Proximal: Data that is particularly
useful when nearby at given day/time.
augmentation

haro-sushi.com - Enjoy fresh suchi and grilled me...
Hons on Robson
hons-noodles.com - Extensive menu featuring Can...
17:24
Always on top
Mute
Block
Report
Izakaya
Results are initially ordered by (approx.)
distance/popularity/relevance. Users
can then further personalise the output
to improve productivity.
•Favourite: Always on top of the list even if
farther away. e.g. favourite brands,
frequently accessed objects at home/work.
•Mute: Not necessarily negative e.g. staff in a
shop might mute objects they rarely use to
further promote more common ones.
•Filter/Sort: Farthest, Newest/Oldest, Secure.
Filter/Sort or
more generic
“search tools”
productivity/personalisation

If this degree of personalisation feels too high-
maintenance, it’s maybe because search has (so far)
mostly been a way to discover other people’s stuff.

Drat! Filius seems to
have gone wandering
again. Must send the
drone to check the river.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/7584239230
BEACONS BOOKMARKTOP SITES
Search or enter address
Harry
Male - 2km walked
Hermione
Female - 1.3km walked
Voldemort
Male - 2.2km walked
Dumbledore
Male - 0.5km walked
Draco
Male - 2.1km walked
Bartemius
Male - 0.7km walked
6
(PS - the Netherlands have “Beaconized alpacas”!)
…instead of a dashboard for things you care
about…a tool whose job is to assist you in
assembling highly-personalised yet
meaningful results.
(so meaningful in fact that they may preclude
leaving the query environment at all)

…but what if we’re still
thinking too conservatively
about what a browser or
discovery service could be?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boedker/2857091534

“…the watches glow and vibrate
when you walk somewhere in the real world
that corresponds with somewhere in
Pokémon Go's virtual world”
Source: The Verge - Pokemon Go Plus hands on photos

https://www.flickr.com/photos/25958224@N02/8122856863
…an antenna implanted in
his skull allows him to
‘hear’ the racks upon
racks of brightly coloured
packaging in the aisles as
a sensor converts colour
frequencies into sound. 
- Vice: The Creator’s Project
“
artist Neil Harbisson

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A
Dream" painted by Neil Harbisson.
which means Neil can listen to paintings…
TED: I listen to color
and also paint everything he hears.
Each colour is assigned an audible frequency,

So you’ve successfully located some beacons.
What happens once you click a URL? 
(…and why would you even bother to do so?)
Three potential scenarios…

Scenario 1: Pure discovery (“A much smarter QR code”)
Scenario 2: Interact with moderately “smart” things
Scenario 3: Directly control an object

tadaslab on Instagram
“Call a taxi” button attached to a tree #iot
“…the signiﬁcance of
technologies such as RFID and
2D barcoding is that they offer
a low impact way to import
physical objects into the
datasphere—to endow them
with an informational shadow.
- Adam Greenﬁeld

Seriously? Is that it?
That’s only marginally
more useful than typing
a URL yourself, or just
googling it…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/neilghamilton/10389735244
url/greatKurdishFoodNearby

…unless you’re waaaaay at the back
top range for beacons is currently ~100m (300ft) and while a wider
smart
poster
range will drain more power, this poster is powered, so that’s ok
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alsaarom/8258444009

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sfj/288526372
knowing a user is nearby is also
an opportunity to augment content
Yikes, as you can see,
we’re *really* busy!
There’s about a 20 minute
wait, but our sister location
Oishii still has three tables.
JOIN WAITLIST
SHOW ME OISHII
BOOK ANOTHER DAY
to suit their location

A few thoughts…
• Remember the old debate about all the things “mobile users
won’t want to do”? (Hint: that list is super tiny)
• Once a user discovers a URL in the real world* there’s no
reason they can’t bookmark it for later use.
• So…what (if anything) will users “NOT want to do” with that
URL when they are no longer nearby?
*URLs that control physical things could make this question even more interesting
(or, in some contexts—disturbing).

The fact that you maybe could provide identical functionality from
anywhere brings up another question:
Should the URLs that you broadcast be new, or signiﬁcantly
different from the ones that users might encounter “on the web”?

there’s certainly beneﬁt to mirroring
a virtual architecture to its physical equivalent
https://www.flickr.com/photos/morebyless/14246207164
url/grandGallery
url/artDesign
url/artDesign
url/artDesign
url/naturalWorld
url/naturalWorld
url/naturalWorld
(you’re maybe doing this already, this just provides
a new way to expose those relationships)

…then again, you could create local groupings
to reduce noise and information density
https://www.flickr.com/photos/crondeau/14314596362/
url/specialExhibitDouglasCoupland
url/thisDonutThingHereThatDougWantsHelpIdentifying
(while potentially retaining that density online)
Douglas Coupland, “The Brick Wall”, 2005/2014 assemblage with pieces
from the following toys and various untraceable construction sets.

you could also attach URLs to “things”
that only exist at a certain time, or
https://www.flickr.com/photos/morebyless/14246207164
Hi, i’m Narelle!
Ask me anything about
vikings, or join my class
on Thursdays and
Sundays at 14:00.
REGISTER
in a certain place

…which kinda’ brings us
back to discovery.
 
Once exploring the web
gains a more tangible
form, will we begin to
seek out far more
exploratory
experiences?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boedker/2857091534

Once upon a time…web discovery provided
a form of curation that reflected its
creator’s personality.
Maybe it’s time we bring an element of
curation back…?

Search engines could
contain a collection of
“helpers”, each with
different moods, tastes,
and proclivities to help us
discover things in entirely
different ways.
Animism as a metaphor for interaction design, by Phillip van Allen
Seeks attention, provokes
and interrupts.
Extremely structured
and organized, geeky
and persistent
Proud of ﬁnding new
information, fast, short
attention span
Dwells on existing
information, methodical,
focused, sometimes dreamy.
Mediator/wrangler/
translator for the other
AniThings
THE PASSIVE WALL
Shy, displays it’s
own ﬁndings, but is often taken
over by other AniThings.

A brief “smart” device primer…
Many “smart” devices we use these days* can be controlled using an app,
but very rarely does the app “speak” directly to the thing.
*This will eventually change but for now we’re at the mercy of issues such as high power-consuming wi-ﬁ
radios, a lack of widespread iPV6 support and poor interoperability of low-power communication protocols.

2
1 you use the (native)
app on your phone to
issue a command
—”make it blue!”
3 …and transmits
(P2P) to the bulb
4
…who then uses a mesh
network to tell other bulbs that
may be too far from the bridge
Instead…your app
often communicates
with the cloud, or a
local hub (or bridge),
which then relays the
command to the
smart device.
(This is just one example…
with *many* variations on
this theme)
…which the
bridge in your
house receives
via wiﬁ…

…extending this pattern to the
physical web will enable us to
create all sorts of rich and yet
casual scenarios that
completely bypass the friction
of downloading an app
https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlottemorrall/3778508426
GUMBOT
Bet you don’t have a
quarter? Am I right or
am I right?
GUMBOT
No sweat. How about
one of these? That’ll
be $0.25 please.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/neo_ii/7483010074
Now playing
LOGIN with SPOTIFY
VOTE FOR THE NEXT SONG
I Didn’t see it
coming
Belle and Sebastian
Monthly special for Spotify
members.
Log in to redeem your
complementary virtual jukebox
credit and choose a song we will
play in the next 18 minutes.
simple, anonymous, low
commitment interaction
higher commitment, but
also higher reward
“smart” a thing must be, you may also
also want to reconsider the term “device”
(is the device the music system…or the café itself?)
…once you reconsider how

Interesting factoid: It costs
about 3 million dollars to
outﬁt a 767 with a seat-back
entertainment system.

PS - Android users
can even download
the native app directly
from the plane :-)
Air Canada Rouge recently replaced their seat-back system with a web app whose content
is streamed from within the plane to a passenger’s personal device (or a rented iPad).
Anyone with a browser can access the service—but passengers are incentivised to
download the app to access premium content.

A few thoughts…
• Many of the “apps” these URLs point to have barely anything to
do with the stuff that’s currently on that brand’s web site.
• They are single-purpose, designed for just-in-time-interaction
and can therefore often be smaller and more lightweight.
• And if we assume* they will only/mostly be accessed on mobile,
some could even be mobile-only.
*Assumptions are dangerous…but in many markets, this one stands a pretty decent
chance of being correct.

Does my interaction with
this flower pot require
much more than a
disembodied record-set?
[yes]
[no]
[maybe]
Source: Estimote Nearables
…instead of delivering a
giant, multi-purpose
container full of stuff you
hope a user will want…

…you can focus on
crafting small,
carefully-curated
bundles of experience
that combine to tell a
great story.
Source: The Verge

(or if you will…*much*
better ads?)
Source: The Verge

https://www.flickr.com/photos/curious_e/10473440064
which is what’s starting to happen in China
with something called “light apps”

…small, fun, and beautifully
designed single-purpose
“sites” that are so intricately
tied to just-in-time mobile
discovery that brands rarely
bother to even support
larger screens*.
*which I don’t totally recommend, but
there’s a big difference between
“supporting” a context and fully
optimising for it.

The main reason the
desktop barely matters
is that an increasing
number of B2C (and
C2C) interactions and
transactions take place
within a chat window
that you deep-link into
or out of from the web.
Source: Why Southeast Asia is Leading the world’s most disruptive business models

A few more
thoughts…
•How long before
optimising* for the
desktop becomes a
liability?
•How long before just-
in-time, context-based
interactions are the
only reliable way to
attract and engage?
*as opposed to merely supporting
Source: Why Southeast Asia is Leading the world’s most disruptive business models

https://www.flickr.com/photos/crondeau/14314596362/
Douglas Coupland, “The Brick Wall”, 2005/2014 assemblage with pieces from the following toys and various untraceable construction sets.
What is this object? Where is it from? Share
your ideas at #dougsDonutThing
Doug Coupland
@douglascoupland
63%
37%
@douglascoupland
511 votes
A toilet float
A toy
url/thisDonutThingHereThatDougWantsHelpIdentifying
bundles of just-in-time, long-tail
content and micro-interactions
as we exchange smaller and smaller

…it’s not clear we’ll always
need to open an app* at all
*native or otherwise—remember, notiﬁcations now
exist in the browser as well
url/starbucksBranch_0123
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130000572@N03/16285653016/
Receipt Available
Tipping available until 12:09
$0.50 $1.50 $2.00
11:20 AM

computer or your phone”
of a time before there were better ways
“…websites are unnecessary vestiges
to ﬁnd things to look at on your
- The Awl, The next internet is TV
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/6436100219

PS - Messaging may be
eating websites…but i’m not
certain it has to eat the web
https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/6436100219

Scenario 1: “A much smarter QR code”
Scenario 2: Interact with moderately “smart” things
Scenario 3: Directly control an object

While still early days…a standardized open web JavaScript
Bluetooth API is currently in the works.
This API will allow webpages to create direct connections
to nearby Bluetooth devices.

The toy broadcasts a URL to
a web page that, through
JavaScript, directly connects
to the toy via Bluetooth.
The interface enables
you to personalise and
conﬁgure the toy.
2
1
This will enable devices
to offer advanced
interactions without the
need for an internet
connection.
JS bluetooth enabled toy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwK3ccOJ6EY

A few ﬁnal thoughts…

Each of these examples, taken by itself, is modestly useful.
Taken as a whole, however, they imply a vast "long tail"
where anything can offer information and utility.
— Scott Jenson, Google
“
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsome1/1243493095

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nnova/16527031431
Affordances: the actionable properties between the world and an
actor…[they] are a part of nature: they do not have to be visible,
known, or desirable. Some affordances are yet to be discovered…”
— Don Norman
“

Photo of Sniff by Timo Arnall on Flickr, used with permission
Sniff - the RFID
enabled toy dog
The future promises to be full of wonderful and mysterious things whose
physical form may not always hint at the opportunity-space they present.

As designers, it will be our job to mediate and enable the discovery of
these hidden capabilities. To render the virtual tangible, and expose the
hidden meanings and opportunities within physical things.
Photo of Sniff by Timo Arnall on Flickr, used with permission
speaker
RFID reader
vibration motor
battery
vibration motor

This is what I believe the web was truly meant for… 
 
(…even if it maybe took a while for it to reveal itself)
Immaterials: Light Painting Wi-ﬁ explored the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/michale/147584173/
The web isn’t a page, a
platform, a destination, or an
activity—its a universal tool
for us to explore, hack and
shape our world.

What if you could bump into data?
Hold it in your hand as easily as
holding a cup?
Brendan Dawes, Data as an object

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/tinou/453593446
thank you
many thanks to the
amazing photographers on
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5
@yiibu
hello@yiibu.com
contact us
at
Presentation deck available @ 
http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu

Imagining the physical web

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