UPDATE TO ARTICLE: I just found a new article on IGN detailing augmented reality in Sony’s NGP, Sony NGP: Augmented Reality Done Right. It talks, very clearly, about the limitations of AR on the Nintendo 3DS and what Sony has learned from that, and how they’ve improved upon integrating augmented reality in their new handheld.

While killing time between facilitating sessions, I ventured over to the Playstation Blog. They have an older article there (read: April 2011) I just found that details the history of augmented reality in Sony gaming products: From EyeToy to NGP: PlayStation’s Augmented Reality Legacy.

One particular quote from the article really stood out to me: “There’s a popular misconception that augmented reality is just “kid’s stuff,” but with more than eight years of experience under our belt, we’ve found there’s a wide variety of compelling and cool AR experiences that everyone can enjoy.”

This statement left me wondering: How much of this misconception stems from a lack of understanding, and how much of it stems from hardware not supporting the technology? Thinking about it, I’d have to say that the latter fostered the former. Augmented reality was really made popular first on mobile devices, but until things like gyroscopes were included in phones, augmented reality was a bit sluggish and buggy. These recent advancements in mobile devices has led to augmented reality becoming quite a useful tool. For example, over the past two years several cities in France started incorporating augmented reality into tourism and transportation information related to their cities. In Denmark there were companies developing apps for smartphones that leveraged augmented reality for similar purposes. And in the US, you can use apps to learn more about well-known landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty.

Sadly, not many people know about how great augmented reality is–even those who think of themselves as ‘techy’ have limited awareness of augmented reality. Essentially, augmented reality allows people to receive an overlay of information on the screen of their device that is relevant to their current location. In many wayfinding apps, users receive information about nearby landmarks or restaurants they have previously indicated interest in finding. That is an extremely useful, and grown up, way of using augmented reality. However, in keeping with the perception that augmented reality is part of kids’ toys, the next major item to incorporate it that got a fair amount of attention is the Nintendo 3DS.  As the proud owner of an aqua 3DS, I can tell you it’s pretty nifty. I think that,  given the purpose of the device and the hardware limitations, Nintendo did a fine job working in 3D and augmented reality as major features. But, the augmented reality feature is limited to built-in games (‘face raiders’), and AR cards that users can place on a flat surface to play minigames and boss battles with really angry dragons. And–as an added bonus–one man even tatooed an AR card on his arm and can get images to pop out of it using his 3DS. So there’s a little bit of added mileage onto augmented reality there. That being said, augmented reality is not the feature that is most-talked about by consumers or that is being played up by Nintendo–they’re all talking about the 3D image capability.

I would certainly like to see more awareness of apps like ‘AR USA’ by presslite, even though I know that walking around and using your phone as a viewfinder is a good way of slamming into things or getting robbed. (Read: People won’t do it.) But I think a very nice use of it would be in the form of in-store shopping assistants that direct you to sales by department or brand. Some retailers out there are already developing things like this, and having done research on different consumer segments, I think it would definitely appeal to the younger, more wired crowd as well as men (in general). Younger consumers have always been a group willing to try out the newest nifty tech feature offered by businesses, and men (who tend to be harder to entice to shop in stores) might find such apps can take the boring out of a shopping session.

These are all just part of my $0.02. Next I’ll likely be wondering about applying augmented reality to things like finding in-game secrets (L.A. Noire with augmented reality to guide you to clues? Meh.), or use in large financial institutions for quick updates on trends.

Monday…Another week, another observation…

Something I’ve noticed while working with technology is that remaining a moving target is a good thing. Take Apple, for example. Back in the day when the iPod was all the rage (despite that awful, awful clickwheel), other manufacturers immediately jumped in the ring with their portable MP3 player offerings, like Samsung, Rio, and Microsoft. So, by virtue of being first to market, Apple exposed the consumer want/need for portable MP3 players and also the weaknesses of the iPod for exploitation by competitors. But then Apple evolved the iPod product line–nano, shuffle, touch–all of these came over the following years accompanied by general improvements in hardware and advances in the programming languages used to support the devices’ functionality.

Basically, as the lineup of Apple products evolved so did the customer’s experience. This happened on two levels. First, there was just the validation that came with owning an Apple product. By owning an Apple portable music player, you were seen as someone who was in on the latest-and-greatest technology. And as a result you were someone who probably became a bit more fluent in the changing interaction language of portable devices that Apple was driving. The interactions that came with these devices were the second part of the evolved experience. These interactions were more physical. So, instead of interacting with menus through some thingy you probably couldn’t name on the outside of the device, you were randomizing song order by shaking your device or directly tapping the item on your device’s screen. Such interactions were novel, cool, and gave users an increased perception of control over their device.

The combination of how Apple played into the perception of their customers and the way they evolved their products made them stand out even more from their competitors. In fact, it even made some of their competitors look silly by comparison. And now, everyone is trying to do what Apple did. Some companies are doing a good job of evolving their devices to compete with Apple, but they are lacking in how they validate perceptions of their users. Other companies have done a great job of offering a good user experience and creating a validated perception of their users. For example, think of owners of Android-based phones vs. iPhone owners. Both groups of owners can claim pretty decent user experiences (depending on what they do with their device). Both definitely perceive themselves in certain ways, and the companies that market their products to each base do what they can to support those perceptions. As a result, there is some pretty heavy competition between Android and iOS. But between other mobile phones and them? Not so much.

I’m going to be curious in the coming months to see which companies it begins to hit home that good user–customer–experience can set competitors apart.

Toss the headsets aside and get ready to turn your backs on the screeching masses of 12 year old boys staying up late to play on XBox Live! The rise of the mobile gamer is upon us…apparently: One in Three Mobile Phone Owners Is a Regular Mobile Gamer.

Being involved in both mobile research and gaming research projects at the moment, the above study caught my eye. It says a lot for how mainstream gaming is becoming, but it also says a lot for the progress of mobile devices. (And yes, I realize that since this is an article and not the actual report there is probably a lot of information that has been lost in translation but stay with me during this post.) This does, however, force me to point out the obvious: Many mobile games are not comparable to console games in terms of depth, gameplay style, or time required for gameplay. With a few exceptions here and there, most mobile games are “quick plays” designed for 10 to 15 minutes of time that can be picked up randomly without any impact to the story. So does that mean that mobile gaming is becoming popular because of how ‘easy’ it is to pop in and out of play? Or, is it symbolic of how mobile our society has become? Maybe both?

Interesting thoughts to ponder, so here is another set of data to include in the ponderings. One of the corresponding statistics to this story is that of 31% of US mobile device owners have smartphones. Of the respondents in the study, 83% of the smartphone owners surveyed indicated that they played mobile games. This last statistic I don’t think anybody should be surprised by as smartphones can support more complex gaming experiences (though their physical design might not make it comfortable to play such games). While this is all interesting/not too shocking/great to see more people catching the gaming bug, it provides fodder for an interesting thought exercise: What will companies do for consumers who own both a smartphone and some sort of home entertainment system with a streaming/recording media device?

The answer is pretty obvious, at least in my mind, for those who own devices with a touchscreen and accelerometer (read: iPhone users, possibly iPad owners). The mobile device can serve as a controller while games can be live streamed into someone’s house and results stored in the cloud somewhere tied to a login name and password. There’s something similar to this already with OnLive, but that’s only streaming the games in to download and play, so not quite the same but close. For those of us who own AppleTV, the streaming device already exists, and with the plethora of apps out there that allow iPads and iPhones to intersect with AppleTV (and other devices, such as DirectTV receivers and Xfinity receivers), it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the mobile gamer who plays Bejeweled 3 while waiting on their date at the restaurant bar will become the next home-based gamer racking up points on a leaderboard and trash-talking their friends.

When the iPad came out I began to wonder: What’s going to happen to the website as we know it? The internet isn’t going to go away anytime soon, that’s for sure. But the technology for accessing it is becoming more streamlined. It started with the MacBook Air–no CD drive, flash memory, wireless connectivity capability. Using the MacBook Air, you had to be able to survive as a minimalist by having all of your software and docs already installed on the device or having what you needed available on sort of portable or cloud storage. The iPad takes that a step further by leveraging the fluid interface design seen on the iPhone and expanding it to a slightly larger device with a bit more power. There is no software, however, to install on the iPad as it works on a series of apps downloaded from the App Store. And the constraints of the device itself have led to the development of a distinct design style that companies are thinking of as a specific skillset that designers must develop.

It isn’t just the iPad, though, that’s driving this. It’s the onslaught of touchscreen devices and tablets in general. Optimizing a website for a touchscreen device, which is most often a mobile phone, or a tablet means turning the concept of a website on its head. Displaying a website on such devices means designers and developers need to be able to ‘trim the fat’, so to speak. Important functionality must definitely be there, but the overload of visuals, frivolous animations, and pointless features is no longer needed–or viable. Users need to be able to access the important information or perform important tasks while on the go, and they don’t need anything getting in their way.

With this very distinct design style, advances in web programming languages such as HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery, and the growing capabilities of touchscreen devices and tablets, it’s only a matter of time before the traditional website becomes a web app.

Not a native app, a web app. Let that sink in exactly what I’m saying here. Native apps are optimized for a system, run on the system directly, and require very specific skillsets that can be expensive to maintain on staff or to hire in directly. A web app, while still needing to be optimized for different browsers, has more flexibility in that it relies on a combination of client-side and server-side technologies to deliver content and functionality to users, and users can download content to keep files and data on their devices. And because it does not rely solely on the device displaying it, it can actually be used on a wide variety of devices.

So what does that mean for companies’ websites? It means these companies will have a new way to interact with their customers if they do it right. Retailers, for instance, can begin creating more immersive experiences. Instead of static pages, or pages with dynamic content portions, shopping can be done from a large catalog that users interact with through a series of tools or guides to find the right outfit or the right accessories. Social networking sites can create interactive maps to track activity, closeness of connections, and even the creation of new connections.

Now to answer my question about what will happen to the website as we know it: It will become a relic, a great reminder of how far technology has come in relatively short time.

Today, while stuck at home with 3.5 ft snow drifts and no internet, I listened to the news on my Sirius satellite radio. One major story–aside from that of Snowpocalypse–was the debut of the first ever iPad ‘newspaper’ app, The Daily. What struck me more than the business model ($0.99/week or $39.99/year for content that you can’t get anywhere but through the app itself), was the amount of techie brouhaha surrounding it. This alone got me excited because that usually means something truly unique or monumental is being accomplished with an application. Rupert Murdoch, founder of Newscorp, and Eddy Cue, Apple’s VP of Internet Services, introduced The Daily to the world as the first app of its kind. So, once I had access to the internet again, I downloaded it.

And what was my reaction? “Ooh! This is pretty cool!”

In terms of design, it’s clean and uses space well. Users can peruse content by swiping through items in coverflow view, but it is called carousel by the developing team. As an added bonus, these content items rotate on their own after a set amount of time. Within each item, interaction is intuitive and the results engaging. For instance, swiping left to right in an item while in portrait view takes you through pages of the story. Changing the orientation of the device to landscape view lets you view photos. You can then swipe left and right to view photos. This interaction can get a bit confusing the first time using the application. Some articles swipe left to right to advance through them, while others, such as in the Apps & Games section, require a user to swipe down to read an article and left and right to switch between articles. Luckily there are usually pretty clear visual cues for this, like in The Coquette, the daily advice column: An arrow at the bottom right of the screen indicates the need to swipe down for more content.

There’s a strong social component to the application, too. Users can post to facebook, twitter, or email the story. Leaving comments is, of course, also available. However, you can actually record a comment.

Another cool factor: Video anchor! While in carousel view there is an expandable control panel with an icon that looks like an old TV set. Tapping it will launch a brief video giving an overview of the current article. There’s also story audio that can be accessed by tapping on the headphones icon. This audio will play in order of the articles in the issue, or can be randomized by clicking on the shuffle icon.

Navigation gets an A- from me. The main navigation consists of only 6 items: News, Gossip, Opinion, Arts & Life, Apps & Games, and Sports. Tapping on one, though, launches users into the first item in that section sometimes with no clue as to how many other, or what are the other, items in the category.

Features in this app are fantastic. In the Apps & Games section there are useful app reviews, and daily sudoku (WIN!) and crossword puzzles (meh). There is also a daily horoscope feature and local weather, which I should have mentioned early–the weather feature is pretty nifty. Both the horoscope and weather can be set by the user in their account settings, and once set up, the weather will allow a 5-day and 12-hour forecast. The cool factor increases with the 12-hour forecast as it includes a slider users can move to see the time, phase of the sun or moon, cloud cover, and temperature.

All in all, this seems like a nifty app so far. And in an effort to convince everyone, Verizon is covering a 2-week trial period for new users of the app. With that, what’s the reason not to check it out? (And if won’t check it out because it came from Newscorp or Rupert Murdoch, then your loss.)

For anyone who has read the first UIX whitepaper on designing mobile commerce applications, here is something that further backs up the claims made by sources I cited in that paper:

http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/mobile-ecommerce-investments-pay-2011/

Whenever I read an article such as the one linked above, my belief is further affirmed that mobile devices will become more and more a part of daily life to the point that it will become a major tool for more than just communication.

A few weeks ago I put out a white paper on mobile shopping applications that pointed out there has been an improvement in mobile application architecture which accompanied a 21% increase in smartphone ownership around the world. The biggest gains in ownership were found among Android and iOS platforms, unsurprisingly. Anyone who spends anytime lurking on LinkedIn or job posting boards will see a huge push for iOS and Android developers. And looking at applications for each of these platforms, in particular game applications, will reveal steady improvements over the years in interface design, multiplayer capability, social network linking, and overall responsiveness. So what does all of this mean for gaming applications, you might ask?

As with any technology advanced capabilities can be a double-edged sword. Improvements in interface design do not necessarily equate to smarter interface design. Usually it means that certain types of controls and interactions can be used due to an increase in familiarity with the platform and the different devices’ technical capabilities. And really this is at the heart of the matter: Improved interface design should support successful gameplay, multiplayer capability, and social network linking. After all, if an application’s interface design is awful for the actions intended, then it doesn’t really matter how fun your game is, how awesome the multiplayer campaigns might be, or how cool your facebook page is going to look with all of the new medals from your game posted it on because you cannot effectively interact with the game.

This begs the question, then, about what constitutes good touchscreen game interface design. And the answer becomes pretty clear when you consider mobile gaming scenarios and issues with touchscreen use in general: Adequate feedback, quick application responsiveness, clear visual affordances, and easy-to-learn gestural interactions. To better understand why these 4 concepts are good answers, let’s consider them one by one.

1. Adequate feedback

The typical definition of adequate feedback tends to be whatever is enough to get a user to realize that their action has had an effect. Touchscreen devices rely heavily on the visual modality, so the first thing that springs to mind is use clear visual feedback. Well, that’s a really nice idea but have you considered that users cannot see through their hands and fingers, and those things may be blocking the screen location where the visual feedback might be occurring? Because of that possibility, consider crossmodal feedback. Crossmodal feedback is just a fancy way of saying, “provide feedback that users can receive via two or more sensory modes.” So, maybe visual feedback in the form of a glow on screen and a specific sound for auditory feedback. Another possibility is tactile feedback for devices that support it. In fact, research conducted within the past 3 years has shown that tactile feedback actually improves users’ awareness that their actions have had an effect on the system (Hoggan et al., 2008).

Now, tactile feedback might be expecting a lot, but take a moment to consider that many touchscreen devices are being used while on the go, so users might be in an environment where they either cannot clearly hear auditory feedback or they might mistake ambient noise for auditory feedback. Combining tactile feedback with visual or auditory feedback can make it clear that an action was actually registered by the system and has had an effect.

2. Quick Application Responsiveness

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with the first point I made about feedback, but this one pertains to all types of interactions in a game regardless of the presence of feedback. Users are very impatient, and when they don’t receive feedback within an acceptable amount of time they tend to do one of two things: Repeat the action until they get some sort of response, or quit. Both of these could have some very frustrating unintended consequences from a gameplay perspective. An argument could be made that mobile gamers are probably a little bit more tech savvy than their non-mobile gamer counterparts, and it’s possible that this is true. However, as a whole mobile technology is one of the more poorly understood technologies out there by users in general–regardless of their ability to use technology. So there is still a very good chance that they will tap wildly on screen or quit a gaming application if they do not receive some sort of application response within a reasonable timeframe.

3. Clear Visual Affordances

Remember what I said earlier about touchscreen devices relying heavily upon the visual modality? Well, the need for clear visual affordances is amplified by that fact in this scenario. Something has to look interactive in order for touchscreen users to even bother with it–much like when users interact with websites or software. Sure, users can just tap away at items on screen to figure out whether or not those items actually do anything, but I have yet to see users who tap willy-nilly on touchscreens in all my years of testing touchscreen devices. They will more likely than not proceed very cautiously, half-paralyzed with fear that tapping on the touchscreen of their device will cause some unexpected reaction that they cannot recover from. And for those who will tap like crazy on a touchscreen, they will likely become frustrated because they will eventually hit something actionable and not know what exactly it was, and then have to either backtrack or quit the application if the end result was not what they wanted. So at the end of the day, make it clear that users can interact with screen items. Here are some guidelines for that:

• Do not use transparencies on active screen items
• Do not overlap inactive items over any portion of active items
• Use strong color cues to signal an active screen item either through the use of saturated colors, or by adequate difference between button and label colors

4. Easy to Learn Gestural Interactions

This concept has two facets to it. First, keep the interactions simple. The more complex an interaction is to perform successfully, the less likely users are to be successful when trying to perform it. This is really important in the context of gaming because a certain interaction may have a time limit, or users may be monitoring other screen locations while trying to perform the needed interaction. Second, limit the amount of awkward contortions, repetitive or prolonged actions, and forceful actions. I realize that’s a lot of “NO” for one guideline, so let me break it down to make it easier to digest.

An awkward contortion could be asking the user to hit two buttons on one side of the screen in close proximity to one another while hitting a button on the opposite side of the screen when you know full well that they need both hands to hold the device up and see the screen. Repetitive or prolonged actions can be problematic because they will induce muscle fatigue in the user. There’s also a bit of a learning curve here for those new to touchscreen gaming with these types of actions. Console games, for example, have limits on things like range of motion and how that translates to on-screen movement. Pushing a joystick to its limit will usually result in fastest movement of characters. Because touchscreen devices lack that same physical boundary, users may continue moving their finger in one direction thinking that they will continue to move faster until they have actually moved their finger off of the control. Finally, forceful actions can cause short-term pain but long-term damage. (This is simple physics. If you move quickly at a touchscreen, your finger has energy that hits the touchscreen with a certain level of force. And touchscreens, being rigid, do not do a very good job of dispersing that force or absorbing it. So that force will disperse through the next available medium: Your flesh and cartilage. Ow.)

As anybody who knows me will attest to, I love my iPhone 4. Yes, I hate the fact that I was basically forced into buying one because the iOS4 update bricked my 3Gs. But I rarely hold the child responsible for the sins of the father, so I’m not holding my iPhone4 responsible for the forced obsolescence of my previous phone.

Now, I rely fairly heavily on my iPhone4 to help me prepare for the week. So when I was attempting to plan my day around the weather, imagine my confusion when I saw this…

Apparently the sun had only risen in Shorewood, IL, while Utica, Aurora, and Chicago, IL were all still in the dark. Even more funny was the fact that I had just exited Union Station and was having trouble reading my iPhone because the sun was blinding me. What could have caused my iPhone4 to have such a brainfart? Don’t know. Everything else was functioning perfectly fine with my phone that morning.