The Smallness of Big Cities

You Shall Not Pass is a critical design concept that asks the question: how will ubiquitous AR usage in public space get in the way of pedestrian movement? Who owns the right of way of the space in front of your camera?

The project consists of a series of 3 objects, each existing in a world 5-10 years into the future where public AR usage is commonplace.

The Projector

The Projector is a phone add-on that projects a pattern on the ground in front of you as you enter AR-mode. There are two modes: a courtesy-mode, and a barrier mode. The courtesy pattern, the default pattern, indicates to passerbys that they should pass in front of the user worry-free. But the barrier mode, a red box, seeks to deter many from passing in front of the camera. As AR users become more annoyed with pedestrians passing through their viewer, more begin switching to barrier mode, creating invisible spheres of obstruction on the city sidewalks.

The Radar

For the busy New Yorker, the best path to take is the one that gets them to where they are going fastest. With the high level of usage of AR in public, dodging and ducking AR users becomes a city habit. Get the radar, however, and you can avoid all that hassle. Pop the pocket-watch sized device open and quick steer clear of the hot zones where AR usage is high and sidewalk velocity is slow.

The Yellow Summons

4.18: Presentation of final prototype. Click below for the slides!

Video of actual prototype:

He does such a good job here:

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/4/10/the-first-decade-of-augmented-reality

Highlights (and snippets where I marvel at his lucidity):

Looking back at this a decade later, there were really four launches for multitouch. ... Most revolutionary technologies emerge like this, in stages - it's rare for anything to spring into life fully formed. 

Smartglasses = a screen floats things in space in front of you, but it's not connected to the world in any way

SLAM = you're mapping the 3D surfaces of a room, but not understanding it

“form-factor-discovery”

as in 2000 or 1990, the answers aren't clear, and neither, actually, are the questions.

Places where his discussion is especially relevant to my thesis: 

- Real augmentation of reality, where the technology “isn’t just mapping the objects around [me] but recognizing them”, is what I’m trying to suggest with street-smart AR. The tech would need to be able to sense user position relative to areas e.g. streets and subway tracks for the buffer behavior to kick in.

- He starts dipping into the effects on interaction when he mentions the “social questions the Google Glass ran into”. How do we give a clear signal of what we’re doing? Will people demand that clear signal?

Tested my third street-smart augmented reality case study on the streets of New York today. Spoke to 10 passerbys, go great feedback on whether they noticed the street-smart patterns. Big learning: there’s still a long way to go for really nailing the ability to clearly but smoothly catch user attention, wherever they are oriented.

Moments from public testing session

- Start with personal story: I have an AR cat - What is AR? Quick intro. - You may think that’s fantasy, but the tech of AR is already here. In fact, I’ve been using it for the past 5 months (quick live demo of Tango) - Designers and developers are focusing on the experiences they can create. And naturally so, everyone’s excited about the potential - But things might get awkward, and now is a great time to consider those - Here are three areas where things might get weird:   - Misinterpretation and Exclusion       - Sharing UX       - Phone

   - Right of Way        - Projection concept   - Distraction and Safety       - Case studies       - (Live demo on stage edge?)       - Manual for Street Smart AR

Diagrams for a “technical” manual on street-smart AR patterns

To synthesize prototypes #3 and #4, I plan on crafting an abridged manual for street-smart patterns that covers UX patterns and principles for pedestrian safety within an AR environment. Inspired by manuals. It will be issued by the Connected Environments Council, a fictional public-private consortium made up of companies providing AR platforms in collaboration with the NYC Office of Connected Environments, a similarly made-up city agency that was born out of a joint committee from the city’s DOT, DCP, and DOITT.

This manual will take the form of a digital reference manual, not unlike technical specifications such as Google AMP, the IAB’s digital advertising standards, or the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide.

The target is to have the content of this done over the weekend of Mar 25-26.

UPDATE: I’VE BUILT THE MANUAL. AVAILABLE HERE.