The current reality of Extended Reality
and what a Tech Consultancy Organization can do about it.
This article exists because of Dave Elliman(my esteemed colleague), since he asked the most obvious but the most important question for anyone working in a Tech consultancy organization enthusiastic about XR:
‘How prepared we SHOULD be for XR going forward in the future?’
The shorter answer:
From my point of view, XR is at a stage now where the smartphone technology was in 2005–2006.
So, currently any tech consultancy organization should :
- Aggressively prepare, groom and ramp up it’s XR capabilities,
2. Evangelize the potential of XR in digital transformation for their clients,
3. Be a thought leader in defining principles for some of the unspoken issues like privacy, safety, accessibility and other factors for responsible consumption for the Industry(stage 0),
4. not see XR in isolation rather should be seen in convergent with AI and other emerging technologies.
5. Prepare for the next iPhone 1 moment (stage 3- explained below) to arrive.
The Longer answer:
XR (AR/VR/MR) is still categorized as an emerging technology even after 20 years since its inception. Well, what categorizes as emerging technology? In simple terms, a tool or technology that has an immense potential to change our lives and our future. Today, even in 2021, many tech consulting organizations often asks the question of how much focus and attention is needed towards XR (AR/VR) and what should be our modus operandi whereas on the other hand, the big tech companies of the Silicon Valley are still figuring out to make the breakthrough in XR. To put the question in bold letters:
What is the current state of emergence of XR ?
To answer this question, first we need to look at the bigger picture of where XR industry currently stands now.
As history suggests, for any technology, the journey from being emergent to being ubiquitous can be divided into 5 stages. They are:
- Stage 1: Research and Experimentation stage- Discovering and defining how should humans interact with the technology
- Stage 2: Competition stage- where every device/company in the market is competing in the race to become the default
- Stage 3: Breakthrough Stage- Standard Interaction is established and every other company follows it (e.g, launch of iPhone 1 in 2007, followed by uprising of Android OS )
- Stage 4: Open to All Stage- Everyone comes up with use cases, solutions, Apps, tools, etc.
- Stage 5: Ubiquitous stage- The technology is a necessity, a basic human right and is used and consumed by everyone, everyday (current stage of Smartphone technology)
However, in history, Stage 0 was never considered (more on this later)
Some may argue that XR is already in stage 4. But in my opinion it is only for the enterprise sector. A lot of retail and manufacturing enterprises are buying XR devices to upscale training processes for their employees. The employees use the devices because it helps them achieve their goals for their company and subsequently saving time and money. But, if you ask any of them, none of them will actually aspire to buy an XR device for their personal use. The reason? XR is not there yet (due to hardware issues like limited FOV, bulky, overheating batteries, implementation of 5G, a holistic ecosystem, a good use case, etc.). But as a Designer, I see another important reason and it’s simple. XR is a shift to a new dimension of computing (from traditional 2D interfaces)and none of the major XR devices have actually solved the problem of defining a default interaction model, or in simple words:
No XR device in the market has been able to define how a human should actually interact with XR Devices that is intuitive, easy to understand and makes sense to the human brain.
One simple example for smartphones is: It was Apple iPhone 1 that defined how a page should be scrolled by using a finger for a smartphone. Before that, it was tapping by a stylus on the down and up arrow button to scroll through the page. After this, every major Smartphone company followed the suit of iPhone since the simple scrolling interaction by moving a finger up and down, made sense and it was easy and intuitive.
In case of XR, this simple scrolling or navigational interaction is different in different devices and the default interaction is yet to be defined. Which is why companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc. are investing heavily in research, design and development to define the interaction model that makes sense to the human brain and right now they are filing interaction patents on XR left right and centre in order to compete in the race to be the default. Some companies want us to use a finger ring to navigate through XR contents, some companies are developing a wristband to do so and some companies want us to use our entire hands. Another company wants everything to be hands free and move everything based on the gaze of our eyes (with a consent form for our necks, of course). All have their pros and cons but what is important is that none of them is a default yet and there is still a lot of road to be covered in XR HCI (human-computer interaction). They all are currently in stage 2 and so we should keep up with their developments and current trends and wait for stage 3 to arrive.
So, the question arises, where can or should a Tech consultancy firm intervene? In my opinion, there are a lot of issues that very few people are talking about in case of XR.
There are matters like privacy, safety, accessibility, social issues, depth of immersion, dependency, isolation and addiction, mental and physical health and any factor that should be considered in order to establish a responsible and healthy consumption of the technology, which I call as Stage 0.
These are the matters that should be defined and solved even before stage 1 and can act as a foundation of what should and what should not be for any technology if it has the potential to change our consumption, our behavior and our lives. I firmly believe these were not considered during the advent of TVs or Smartphones, which is why lawmakers are still framing laws for responsible consumption even after smartphones have become ubiquitous in our lives. I believe, for any organization who is working outside the race of being the default has the ability to be a Thought Leader in defining stage 0 (before it is too late) and with the right guidance and leadership one can also define tech and design principles for the consulting community practices. Also, parallelly, it is important to keep on experimenting on XR use cases, solutions for the current devices in the market, evangelize the potential of XR to the clients (will cover this in my next article)for their digital transformation and prepare for stage 3 & 4.
It is still a long and unknown road to be covered to truly unlock the potential of XR, but before we jump the gun, let’s take a step back to acknowledge the reality and understand our stake and where we stand currently, given our positions and limitations as a Consultant. Irrespective of our roles and skills, if we see this from the lens of human experience, we will be able to decipher the checkpoints that are needed for this journey, not repeat the same mistakes again and answer ‘what should be’ rather than ‘what can be’.
