DESIGNING
The future of Augmented Reality
CARINA NGAI
UX Design Lead
Blippar Inc.
ngai.carina@gmail.com
@caweena #AR #ixd16
MARCH 2nd
, 2016
‘Off’ by Johan Rosenmunthe (2009)

About me:
UX Design Lead @Blippar
building an Augemented Reality platform that
enables users to interact with physical objects
in the digital world.
The Internet ON things.

What is Augmented Reality?

Minority Report, 2002

Iron Man 2, 2010

64 years

1957 Sensorama
A simulutor appartatus invented in 1957 by Morton Heilig

1968 First head mounted display
The Sword of Damocles by Dr. Ivan Sutherland

We have come a long way
Steve Mann and Steven Feiner, wearables over 20 years (1980- late90s)

The pace of Augmented Reality
speeds up quickly the last few years
due to the prevalence of Smartphones

Maturity of AR
Google Glass (2013)
Carl Zeiss Smart Glasses (2016)

Meta @TED 2016

Meta @TED 2016

A Screenless Future

EXPECTATIONS
Technology Trigger
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Peak of Inflated Expecations
Plateau of Productivity
TIME
Gartner Hype Cycle

EXPECTATIONS
Technology Trigger
Trough of Disillusionment
Slope of Enlightenment
Peak of Inflated Expecations
Plateau of Productivity
TIME
AR’s Hype Cycle
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
NOW

Prevalence of Smartphones
give rise to AR;
and the rise of AR
will eventually replace Smartphones

Advertising and Brands
Lucky Charms cereal, Blippar (2014)

Advertising and Brands
Rugby World Cup, Blippar (2015)

The breakthrough for AR to
become mainstream is
the moment this “Gimmicky” magic
becomes a practical day-to-day use.

AR brings at least
THREE types of changes
1. New ways to learn
2. New ways to access information
3. New ways to interact with the environment

1. EDUCATION
Goodbye text-based,
linear learning model.
Redefine meaning of Classroom

Learning is no longer
a linear model
Text based fashion

Japanese Newspaper’s AR app
simplifies news for kids
Tokyo Shimbun + Dentsu, 2010

Disney’s 3D AR coloring book app
Disney Research, Oct 2015

Interactive Print
Layar, 2013

Discovery-based Learning

Turning the world around us into an
interactive learning environment.
Apply “Learning by Teaching” model

2. BIG DATA
data collected from social media, sensors,
business transactions, machine-to-machine

Volume of data generated by
Internet of things
AR provides a way for people to access/visualize information
generated by IoT into digestable bites. It is contextual.

Meta info on everything
aka. Information Shadow (Mike Kuniavsky) or SPIME (Bruce Sterling)
i
i
i
i

From Branding and Advertisement
To Visual Search
To Visual Discovery
i
i
i
i

Health Reflection (Concept), Frog Design 2013

AR use in Enterprise Solution, SAP and Vuzix (since 2013)

AR-assisted Remote Guidance, xmreality (2015) Bosch Automotive Service Solutions (2014)
Entreprise AR

HOW IT WORKS
Augmented Reality relies on trigger points in the ‘real world’

QR Code AR Tag Image
Recognition
Facial
Recognition
GPS

Tourism

MOMA in New York (2014)
i

From Access Info. ___work
to Visual Discovery __play
The act of exploration is driven by our human nature of
curiosity, the desire for knowledge

3. Virtual elements

Meta’s 3D sculpting (2014)

I. Gestural control
Metaphors like keyboards, screens are becoming irrelevant.
What are some of the natural gestures we perform subconsciously?
And can we map new interactions with these findings?
Feel without touching, Ultrahaptics (2015)

II. Virtual elements in a physical space
Create
Deposit
Retrieve

Technology = make easy to navigate
between places, not identify with a
place. Connection with the physical
environment requires us to do more
than simply passing through it.

Memories in location

What if AR is not just
an add-on experience,
but a neccessity?
What would that future look like?

In the developing countries,
mobile phones networks are cheaper to install than landlines
Sending airtime to sweethearts as an alternative currency in Afghanistan, by Jan Chipchase (2011)

AR is a very cheap alternative
to install building infrastructure
Imageine if we require all drivers to own AR lens, so they
can receive traffic related info. City will be able to gather
data and better control traffic.
+ =

How does this impact city planning?
What kind of new social behavior will form?
What kind of new businesses will emerge?

Iron Man 2, 2010
Implications of Technology
Affordability
Lifestyle
Need
Society
Global
Political impact
Perception
Humanity
Relationships

How can us, designers, see beyond
the making of “useful and delightful”
products?

Designers can provide a critical
perspectives for both micro and
macro views on the products,

To encourage a broader spectrum
of discussion.

Beyond the artifact overlay of text,
images, animations, and notifications,

is our curiosity, a strong motivation that’s
instinctively human.

The moment for AR to become wildly
accepted like smartphones, is the
moment we can humanize this
technology with design.

THANK YOU CARINA NGAI
ngai.carina@gmail.com
@caweena #AR #ixd16