Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Lillian Warner

In 2017, it feels like we’re *almost there* with augmented reality. The technology is rapidly developing and I believe that soon, mobile AR content will be ubiquitous. But what needs to happen in order for (consumer-based, mobile) AR to become fully realized?

Right now, many mobile-based AR experiences are self-contained. What I mean by that is that the experience exists within a specific app with a specific AR function. There is no integration with other apps or already-existing daily activities. For example, I’ve been reading about recent AR advertising campaigns. Some of these ad campaigns require users to pull out their phones, open an app, and view the AR content. The flow for this kind of action is a little clunky: it takes significant time and effort to experience a relatively short piece of AR content. I don’t think this is the type of AR experience that will be common once AR is a part of our everyday lives.

Here are some questions I’m thinking about when I envision a future in which AR is a part of our daily lives: How can we incorporate AR into activities that everyone already does? How can we use AR to solve problems through creating new experiences? How can AR be integrated into the digital activities that everyone is already addicted to? What activities are people doing when their eyes are locked to their screens? How can AR add to digital experiences that already exist?

The WayFair AR app is leading the way towards a future in which AR creates new experiences and solves problems.

Some existing examples that clearly point towards a future in which AR is ubiquitous and useful are the AR shopping apps from Lowe’s and WayFair (and soon, Amazon). These apps completely transform the online shopping experience, and they also attempt to solve a problem (e.g. what will this look like in my home? Will this piece of clothing fit me?) AR, in these experiences, simultaneously integrates and re-imagines an existing, necessary, common activity: shopping. Another example of an AR app that also simultaneously transforms an experience and solves a problem is the RentAR app, created and developed by my classmate Brian Hui. Using RentAR, apartment-seekers can walk around a neighborhood, point their phone at any given building, and see the listing information for open units. This app incorporates AR with an already-existing activity that is not only commonplace, but completely unavoidable for most people (pretty much all people need to look for a place to live). Brian’s app doesn’t take an already well-functioning activity and try to add AR onto it. Instead, Brian’s app solves a problem: the experience of apartment searching is far from ideal, and Brian’s app uses AR to make information more accessible, straightforward, transparent, interactive, and efficient. In other words, by solving a problem, RentAR also introduces an entirely new experience. RentAR integrates AR seamlessly into a commonplace, necessary activity that is currently desperate for improvement.

RentAR, by Brian Hui.

What does this type of experience look and feel like when applied to the everyday activities of browsing news and social media on our mobile devices? Here’s what I think:

Imagine that you’re sitting on your couch. You’re scrolling through your Instagram feed. You see regular pictures, Boomerangs, and videos. And you also see an AR post by your friend Reggie. Reggie is hilarious and makes a lot of memes. Like playing a video, you tap the thumbnail of Reggie’s post. An animated dog (scaled down in size) shows up on your coffee table (maybe through your phone screen, maybe as a hologram), does a 5-second dance with a funny caption, and then disappears. You resume scrolling through your feed.

When AR has fully arrived, we’ll be able to sit with our friends and experience AR/MR content together with our friends…kind of like Obi-Wan and Luke are here. Except R2-D2 will be a mobile phone.

This is what it will feel like when AR is ubiquitous. And we’re so close this! Apps like “Cat Angela 3D Hologram for Kids” point towards what I’m describing. Cat Angela is a 3D holographic cat (maybe technically it’s mixed reality) that appears when you point your phone’s camera towards a flat surface. Right now, Cat Angela is self-contained and doesn’t have broad functionality. But apps like Cat Angela won’t be self-contained for long. I think that sometime soon, apps like this will be fully integrated into social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and they’ll be incredibly interactive.

Cat Angela’s proof of concept visual. Not as polished or futuristic as HoloLens proof of concept visuals, but it’s got spirit.

I think AR will have fully arrived when it’s integrated and optional. We will have AR content available to us in the digital experiences we already rely on (integrated). Moreover, we will have the ability to choose whether or not we want to view AR content (optional). We’ll be able to pick and choose the AR we consume and the platforms on which we consume it. We can have a lot, a little, or none at all. And we can experience it in the digital places we’re already consuming media. And perhaps most importantly, the experience is actually, truly easy and fun.

In this near-future consumer tech landscape, users will also be able to easily create and share their own AR content (In the example above, I imagine that Reggie created that dog meme himself). Sometime soon, I think that our mobile devices will enable this type of creation. The development of platforms like GiphyLIVE and Giphy World makes me think this reality will exist sooner rather than later. Maybe our mobile phones will even have cameras that can capture 3D content. In any case, I think that when people are able to make and share their own AR content quickly, easily, and with zero stress, I think AR will have fully arrived.

We’re at an exciting moment in AR. I only talk about existing mobile-based, consumer AR experiences in this post, but there is a whole world of amazing mixed/augmented reality use in the professional sector (see NASA, Bloomberg, and more). Samsung has a patent for holographic TV. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Snapchat and others all have big consumer-based AR projects coming down the pipeline. I can’t wait to see what they have in store. And I also can’t wait until it’s easy and cheap to consume and create AR content from my mobile device. All signs point toward that day arriving soon, and I’m looking forward to it.

This is What AR Will Feel Like When It’s Ubiquitous was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is What AR Will Feel Like When It’s Ubiquitous

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