Updated the “running character” prototype to eye-level flying character for greater street safety, and included feedback at closed street
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Today's Document
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@smallbigcities
Updated the “running character” prototype to eye-level flying character for greater street safety, and included feedback at closed street

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You Shall Not Pass
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
The collective nuisances of public AR usage have come to a head, and the NYPD has been empowered to clamp down on disruptive behavior. A yellow summons, for technology-related infractions, is created and issued to AR users who obstruct pedestrian movement on the sidewalk. Funnily, in this future society, the NYPD is still issuing paper tickets.
By rolling out an AR platform that lets developers create effects for its camera, Facebook may finally make the technology popular.
Oh My God
http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-introduces-world-lenses-2017-4
Final prototype presentation
4.18: Presentation of final prototype. Click below for the slides!
Video of actual prototype:

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Projecting on the ground
Benedict Evans explains AR
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?
What’s missing from the discussion is this question: what are human preferences within the possible universe of AR interactions? Sure, AI could step in and make alot of decisions for us on a day-to-day basis, or we could have alot of information overlaid in front of our eyes, but will we want to have that or will we feel very uncomfortable about it? Evans briefly mentions this social aspect, but as a whole this is still a very tech-centric, how-will-this-be-implemented-and-how-will-it-work discussion.
Prototype #6: Street Smart Dissolving of Landscape
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
Random moments testing the Natural History prototype on the streets
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.

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Pedestrian deaths are climbing faster than motorist fatalities, reaching nearly 6,000 deaths last year — the highest total in more than two decades, according to an analysis of preliminary state data released Thursday...researchers say they think the biggest factor may be more drivers and walkers distracted by cellphones and other electronic devices, although that's hard to confirm.
Pedestrian Deaths Spiked in 2016, Distraction Cited, The Associated Press
Combining future fiction with manuals
http://chriswoebken.com/WORK/Extrapolation-Factory-Operator-s-Manual
Another one: there’s a whole library of these.
Public screen approach to sharing AR experiences. How do we bring that same shared experience to the individual mobile device level?
Draft Outline for Thesis Presentation
- 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
- 1min point of view video - Day in the life: stitching together these 4 concepts - All this I’m showing you seems like such a fantastic world. But will we actually get there? I would argue that much of that depends on whether society sees this as something socially acceptable. And the time to start thinking about these aspects is early, is now

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Diagrams for a “technical” manual on street-smart AR patterns
Here’s the manual in progress
Prototype plan #5: Manual for Street-Smart Patterns in Public AR (Updated!)
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.