Ubiquitous Quests
Sighting a QR code in a coffee shop or on an eBay advertisement, anyone with a contemporary smartphone can scan it to add more information to their mental model of the world. Sensing technologies such as GPS, gyroscopes, cameras, compasses and more have been with us longer than our smartphones have, but not until being embedded in mobile technologies have they been incorporated into the fabric of consumer lives. In time, augmented reality applications that overlay information onto the real world in real time can and will be seamless…but we’re not there yet, and not just because our technologies must improve.
Viewing the world through a phone or similar block of metal will always be undesirable, even though phones are useful platforms to research such AR applications. Instead, our phones’ motley sensors must be intelligently paired with our surroundings, redirecting our attention to the world via intelligent, structured distractions. After all, a phone is but one artifact in an incredibly high-fidelity environment, and to immerse oneself in a phone rather than a physical system is an easily acquired yet unoptimized imbalance. Our model of how we sense the world, how computers sense the world, and how the digital relates to the physical is in urgent need of redefinition.
Although just a start, some location-based services certainly enrich our relationships with the physical. However, using the digital to add some details and (often) intangible rewards to the physical world isn’t the same as really changing how people look at their environments and their possibilities. Foursquare and brightkite, in casual use, realistically do little to encourage people to go outside their comfort zones and instead allow the majority of people to extend their comfort zones. Nonexclusive and with an allowance for people to be passive in their own physical and digital worlds, these applications simply add or glorify extant details of everyday experiences.
Without alienating users and while still creating a successful user acquisition strategy, the next step is to design mobile experiences that better celebrate the unexpected. Let’s move forward from patting users on the back when the press a “check-in” button at their regular bar. Let’s not establish user loyalty by only exploiting insecurities and extant social maps.
The most pervasive and sustainable location based service, and social service in general, is yet to come. When designers and developers update their model of the real world and where sensing technologies may uniquely enrich it – not replace it or immaterially overlay it – we’ll know we’re on the right path.