The physical world and the digital world are both familiar parts of our everyday lives, but the two are essentially still separate. We enter the digital world through a variety of portals – laptops, phones, tablets, etc – and then leave again once our digital task is complete. We can see the beginning of a change to that in the way that our phones are always in our pockets, and we dip in and out of the digital more frequently and less deliberately.
Need
Augmented reality is a key enabler of a further shift towards integration of the physical and the digital, allowing a user to be simultaneously present in both worlds. It is also a technology leaving hype and theoretical benefits and entering a phase of practical hardware and real-world applications. It was therefore a timely subject to consider in my work on technology trends.
Solution
Drawing on extensive research, including data on augmented reality research, technology development, and markets, as well as interviews and structured workshops with experts, I produced a short report giving an overview of the current state of the art. I developed a series of illustrative product concepts to offer a user-centred view of the potential benefits and challenges augmented reality may bring. While I cannot reproduce the full report online for confidentiality reasons, an excerpt from it is given below.