The Role of UX in AR
Augmented reality is all the rage and I belive that a big player in this hype is the fact that people have been waiting decades (Thanks, Star Trek) for this technology to be developed and become accessible. And if augmented reality is to be truly successful, UX will need to play a major role. The big thing AR has to offer to users is a whole new way to experience the world around them. Keyword being experience.
Now, more than ever, we have to be aware of user’s needs. This field is developing and evolving so quickly that research is going to play a vital role. As people become familiar with the technology and begin to expect more from it, research will have to be updated regularly, which means more interviews, more contextual inquiries, constant persona modifications, etc. Observation and user empathy will be imperative for successful AR development.
AR is also being applied to a variety of different contexts and industries. It’s not just fun and delightful games. Businesses are applying it to their models for both customers and employees. For customers, they’re looking to add a useful function or provide some delightful feature that simply gets the user to interact with a product or the company, itself, and leave the experience with positive feelings. Businesses may have more of a need for their AR products to serve a specific function, like providing data and information or for training purposes. This could go wrong quickly if the interface isn’t streamlining and alleviating the employees workload. User and business needs and goals will need to be thoroughly understood to provide the most valuable product.
While there’s a lot of work for developers to do, we, as UX designers, will also have to put forth effort to understand the workings, limitations, and potential of AR. We will have to learn new terminology, new gestures, new interfaces in order to provide a positive AR experience. After all, how can we provide a good experience without fully understanding the technology itself.
In the beginning, bad designs are going to occur often and will be far too easy to do. Too much information, not enough information, overwhelming amounts of graphics, and so on, will negatively impact an experience and users wouldn’t return. A good design will offer things that 2D designs cannot. Good AR designs should be delightful, graceful, intuitive, and safe for the user.
With science fiction’s depictions of futuristic AR devices in movies, comics, books, etc, there are some big shoes for this technology to fill. There are high expectations that need to be met, and it’s the experience design that’s going to help AR exceed those expectations.
