Why does Augmented Reality not receive full public acceptance?
Along with the growing technology, augmented reality (AR) has gradually extended its scope to become the central pillar in some industries. However, the public seems to be distant from this potential technology. In this blog, we address the reasons why AR still cannot win the public’s approval.
Augmentation technology is expected to be one of the most trends leading the technology wave in the twenty-second century. Yet, the public reaction shows the opposite. In this blog, we tap down the barriers pushing this technology away from the public.
A glimpse of the AR’s growth situation
The AR market is extending. It is forecast that augmented reality (AR) will boost gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide by 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars by 2030. The U.S. is expected to receive a boost of over 380 billion U.S. dollars, while in Germany, the boost is set to approach 73.7billion U.S. dollars.
Since Pokémon Go, the public recognition of AR started growing. 83.1 million consumers in the U.S. are already actively using AR monthly in 2020. This accounts for 25% of the population and shows it’s an opportunistic time to capitalize on the growing AR user base for both marketing and point of sale product engagement.
Indeed, AR technology enriches communication by generating a greater enjoyment and reaction between customer and product, leading to a positive attitude and higher purchase intention than normal media.
But people are still either uncaring or having no idea how they can implement AR technology in their business. On our LinkedIn post two months ago about the AR benefits in E-commerce, a good amount of audience wonder about the use cases of this technology to their business.
Just like two faces of a coin, there are several AR’s downsides along with its benefits, causing the public indifference to this technology. Let dig in!
AR struggles
The struggle to find suitable business models
Augmented technology is more or less a disruptive innovation. In fact, there are more and more start-ups delivering outstanding AR solutions. Besides, big corporations such as IKEA and Nike have been applied AR-relative solutions in their customer communication service.
However, these AR implementing businesses meet the same pattern: The solutions are integrated into business models which can function well regardless of the existence of AR. Zooming out to the more extensive landscape, the entrepreneurs still do not figure out the business model to generate long-term values using AR.
While AR technology is struggling to find its place in the B2C branches, industrial and healthcare businesses show greater interest in AR. In return, AR technology can come handy in several aspects such as training, real-time problem-solving, and maintenance.
In other words, within industrial and healthcare, augmented technology has a great potential of breakthrough creation than other fields where its tasks are just an added value or short-term marketing trick.
The struggle to find common development standards
The standard for augmented technology is at the moment remain under the making. Without sufficient criteria, no developing firm can secure the compatibility of AR contribution to a whole technology transformation. It leads to the enterprises’ redundant behavior toward AR implementation.
In 2019, the AR Framework was updated by the Augmented Reality Framework (ARF) ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) and remains the latest AR framework until now. Obviously, this AR framework releasing has an unofficial effect on the growth of AR by providing a basic standard for this technology’s further development.
However, the terms mentioned in the framework are closer to academia’s side, imperceptibly pushing the augmented technology one step away from the public’s attention.
One good news is the big tech-heads have detected both excitement and hesitation of the crowd. Several AR toolkits have been introduced, such as ARkit by Apple and ARCore by Google, creating a more accessible and friendlier approach to this tech.
The struggle to secure privacy
Yes, security and privacy concern is one of the most significant barriers preventing people from experience new tech. The same goes for AR. The reasons are clear. Because
- The AR’s nature of layering a digital texture over the user’s environment
- The AR’s toolkits and vendors can collect and store user’s information
The critics have the right to be afraid that this tech could be misused, therefore violating their private information. To gain public trust, AR suppliers have to address a good amount of security questions, such as
- How do AR companies use and secure the information they have gathered from users?
- Where do companies store augmented reality data — locally on the device or in the cloud? If the information is sent to a cloud, is it encrypted?
- Do AR companies share this data with third parties? If so, how do they use it?
Due to the lack of standards in augmented reality programming, oversight, and negligence, there is a legitimate chance of getting into trouble without meaning to do so.
AR browsers facilitate the augmentation process, but third-party vendors and applications create and deliver the content. Sophisticated hackers could replace a user’s AR with one of their own, providing false information or guiding users into actions that benefit them.
For example, the “Try before you buy“ application could cause significant prestige damage if being compromised. Hackers could substitute the official digital layer with pornographic content and use it for blackmail purposes.
The possibility of physical harm
Take the famous Pokémon GO as an example. With its geolocation-based augmented technology using the camera, Pokémon Go has a particularly fascinating premise while moving. According to “Death by Pokémon Go: The Economic and Human Cost of Using Apps While Driving,” users playing Pokémon Go near the PokéStops and getting into collisions incurred county-wide costs of at least $5.2 million, with the “great majority” of that accounting for lives lost altogether.
Although the game’s creator has applied speed restrictions to prevent users from playing Pokémon Go while driving, there is still no complete safeguard for the physical harm during Pokémon Go practicing.
The Pokémon GO case and several is why automobile manufacturers are so reluctant with implementing AR displays — it is more of a liability than the actual advantage for the driving process.
As such, there is a need to develop a certain kind of AR interface that will be useful and yet not distracting from the process.
The struggle of creating quality content
“Seeing is believing.” Although AR technology has been discussed more than ever before by the public, a lack of proof holds them back from approaching the technology.
The major AR-integrating applications on App Store provide simple solutions which can be alternated by the one without AR with the same level of erectness. It seems as the augmented reality included in these apps is served for entertaining and showing-off purposes more than an innovative solution.
The AR menu in the gastronomy industry is an example. The idea behind this implementation is to show the dishes as vivid as possible, therefore enriching the customer experience. Yes, it is interesting at first, but the fever colds off right before. The cold-off speeds even faster as the customers discover that the model can be modified and does not present the food ultimately.
There are two possible reasons:
- The lack of expertise in the field. Delivering an accessible and valuable AR experience requires a wide range of AR know-hows, either modeling or coding.
- The AR’s nature as an addition, augmentation of other things. The entrepreneurs should develop a solution that can incorporate the nature of AR to increase the overall convenience.
Social issues
Because of the inconsistent manner of several AR applications, this technology leaves the public no tremendous impression nor retention.
Besides, the majority remain their oversight about augmentation technology.
As you can see in the graphic, there are many proven applications involving augmented reality in transportation, mobile shopping, warehousing, education, healthcare, and many other fields. However, augmented reality is no more than some zany science in sci-fi books in the public’s eyes. In other words, there are good amounts of people who are not aware of how beneficial AR technology is in several fields.
Check out AR applications (part 2).
The other problem is about the vital of AR-related apps. AR is interesting and convenient, yet not enough to change the customer behavior and keep them stay long-term.
AR technology is supposed to support the “try-before-buy” concept, which is a new e-commerce trend. However, since the limitation of current AR apps, after experiencing, people tend to switch back to their traditional shopping behavior.
The technology gap between device
Another reason keeping the public from receiving an excellent AR experience lies in the delivery device. There is an AR gear limitation in the market. Plus, these gears are at the moment too pricey to have just for a couple of solutions. The most used AR delivering device is the smartphone, which is also diverse in quality and provides a different level of AR experience.
Besides, the hardness of incompatibility when transferring an AR-solution from an AR-nature gear into a smartphone creates many concerns for the business owner if they want to take a step in this argumentation field.
Ethical and legal issues
For every innovation to become a breakthrough, ethical and legal matters are always the negotiated must-have pack. While AR utilizing provides a lot of entertaining and beneficial experience, AR’s ethical and legal issues remain questionable. In the same situation as AR’s standard, legal issues assert that AR is still in its early state. There is still no exact rule or protocol on an AR hijacked situation.
For instance, the most considerable concern raising after Pokemon Go is the privacy threat, especially among children. The safety risk regarding the children when they share their personal information about themselves online and privacy is considered as the most important issue for children, said Fang L. and LeFevre K. (2010) in their study “Privacy wizards for social networking sites.”
Furthermore, the users’ awareness is another thing that should be taken into account. People need to be consent and separate between the real physical world and the virtual world provided by the augmentation tech.
The roadmap of pushing AR on the mainstream
Together with the 5G growth, there is no doubt that augmented reality can go further into the mainstream in the upcoming years.
As shown on the graphic, the public acceptance of the augmented reality expressed through the users’ payment willingness is projected to grow along with other technology.
To be proactive, several micro steps could be taken, such as
Addressing the social, business, and public needs from augmented technology
Although still being in the infancy state for some fields, AR has proven its power in healthcare, education, training, warehousing.
Impact assessment
Overall, the implication of AR aims to increase process efficiency and productivity.
Besides, every specific field can unlock its own power with AR, such as
- Quality of education
- Equity & inclusiveness
- Public safety
- Transport infrastructure
Technology challenges resolving
Marker-based AR has gained significant success in the approach of AR supporting experience, following by location-based AR. However, there is a challenge around the improvement of recognition algorithms for human forms as a promising feature in achieving more immersive and not intrusive AR learning experiences.
Moreover, it is crucial to broaden the research field into the accessibility and usability of AR learning experiences, especially in education and design guidelines for adequate AR-based educational settings.
Development of a specific training
Following the previous step, training to implement and adapt AR is highly required.
Cybersecurity issues solution
A protocol of action should be developed to deal with the following issues when using AR:
- Illegal recording and theft of user behavior data
- Misled of enticed action due to the interjection of information or data into VR/AR that causes personal information exfiltration.
- Fake VR/AR applications that cause or exfiltrate behavioral data and personal information
- Malicious content or malicious applications deceive users about the real world.
- Privacy risk always-on cameras and other sensors
New legislative framework enaction or existing one’s modification
Especially when dealing with geospatial data, the following areas have to be covered by regulations or a legal framework:
- Privacy Intellectual Property Rights (e.g., copyright aspects)
- Data Quality/Liability
- National Security
Common standard development
The common standard of AR has already been developed. However, there is no common standard on how to deploy AR applications for education and training.
Ethical and social issues addressing
There are some (individual) privacy concerns — the probability of accessing information that one should not readily possess about a given person.
The list can be much longer if minor challenges are included. While these problems we listed above seem intimidating, we have the right to hope for a brighter future of the augmentation tech if several actions are enacted to address the technology, ethical and legal issues to gain more public acceptance.
