Augmented Reality gets, well, real
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Android, Navigation, Applications, IBM, Mobile on
Today is the first day of Wimbledon, and it’s also the release of IBM’s first consumer augmented reality application, Seer (for Android mobile devices).
Here’s Seer in action:
Augmented reality is one of the upcoming killer applications for mobile devices, where the built-in sensors mix with geocoded information to tell you just what you’re seeing - and at the same time give you more information about it. Seer’s an annotated window into the Wimbledon, using the device’s camera, built-in GPS, compass, and G-sensor. The combination of the four lets the software know where the phone is, and where it is pointing - and at what angle - at which point it overlays relevant information on the camera view of the world, in your own personal heads-up display.
What IBM is doing is an interesting example, as it links straight into IBM’s Wimbledon data feeds (and its Twitter stream!). It’s easy to see how this type of tool can be adapted to business applications. Plug Seer into a logistics feed, and you’ll be able to “see” just what’s in each package on a shop floor, or in each truck on a loading dock. Perhaps it’ll help your sales staff identify the products your customers are using, or give estate agents a new tool for annotating houses.
Seer’s not the only AR application out there. I’ve been playing with a shiny new HTC Magic for a few weeks now, the G-2 Android phone in the guise of a Google ION developer device, and as part of my explorations I’ve been looking for interesting applications in the Android Market. That’s where I found one of the nicest pieces of mobile software I’ve seen - Google Sky Map.
It’s not surprising that Google has done such a good job with this software, after all, Android is their phone platform, and they should know it (and the reference hardware inside out). The folk in Mountain View also have a huge database of data they can take advantage of - in the shape of Google Earth and all its varied information layers. Where Sky Map differs from most computer based star maps is that it’s live.It then calculates the current view, and displays it. Google is augmenting reality, making it part of its world of search.
On a deeper level it’s actually a specialised version of what Mary calls a “What’s-That”, a device that when pointed at something, well, just does that. It annotates the world with an overlay of information to give us the information we want and need. Phones don’t have the power needed to deliver that level of image recognition, but they do know where you are. Constrain the problem to maps of the heavens, and you’ve got a winner on your hands.
The sky at night can be confusing - with light pollution and high cloud making identification hard. Just being able to point a phone in the right direction to get the names of the objects you can see is an excellent solution to the problem. After all, it’s the most personal of devices and one that’s going to be with us when we most need it.
Then there’s Wikitude, which is a step even further in the direction of the What’s-That, using the device camera and the device sensors to overlay points of interest from geo-coded data in Wikipedia and Qype on the phone screen.
Here it is, letting me know what’s in the world outside a hotel room somewhere in Oregon. There’s still not enough data in the world of public geo-coded information - but what there is is enough to make you want more.
You know, I really like living in the future.
(I’ll go into all the hassles involved in screen-capping Android another time!)
–Simon
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Making your mark through user experience
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Navigation, People, Applications, Web browser, Microsoft on
Good design isn’t just for those fancy marketing advertising sites. It’s an important part of how you relate to your users – and how they work with your applications and services. A SAP line of business service needs just as much design as an ecommerce web site. Internal users need to love the applications they use just as much as they love eBay or LiveJournal or IT Pro…
Here at MIX09 Microsoft is evangelising user experience to designers and developers from all over the world. Microsoft Research’s Bill Buxton has provided dynamic and entertaining keynotes, and his ideas are showing up in the next generation of design tools that previewed here in Las Vegas this week. But the most interesting and inspiring keynote wasn’t the Silverlight 3 extravaganza, or the unveiling of Internet Explorer 8. Instead it was one woman standing on stage talking about prescription medicines.
I was tempted to save this story for Ada Lovelace Day next week, but Deborah Adler’s work with redesigning the prescription label shows just how good design can make people’s lives easier (and even save them), while also changing the public’s perception of a business.
It all started when her grandmother accidentally took some of her grandfather’s medicine. It’s not difficult for that to happen, as the standard packaging for pharmacy medicines all look the same: little orange plastic jars with badly printed labels. Adler was working on her master’s design thesis at the time, and took on redesigning the packaging as a task.
She used information architecture principles to redesign the labels, and came up with a packaging design that made it easier to view important information. The result was a clearer, safer view that could be personalized to avoid confusion, and which prioritised key pieces of information – the drug, the dose, and when it should be taken.
Of course that was just a college project, but Adler believed in what she was doing and felt that things should go a lot further than just being shelved in a college library. She took her ideas to regulatory bodies and to many of the large US pharmacy chains.
She ended up working with Target, where her ideas were refined, using more user research and industrial design. The resulting Clear RX system had redesigned packaging, with Adler’s new clear labels, as well as a new set of documentation to go along with the pill bottles – and the bottle included a magnifying lens to make the text even clearer.
Clear RX has now won many awards, and has also changed the perception of Target’s pharmacy – significantly increasing its market share. A new user experience has ended up not only saving lives, but adding business value.
Adler’s rules for design are a good set of guidelines for anyone designing an application, or a service:
1.Having a love affair with the customer and digging into their needs
2.Solve those needs humanly and humanely
Having a love affair with your users may seem a little odd, but it’s all about making a connection to your users and understanding what they need and how they need it.
Simon
At MIX09 in Las Vegas
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Mapping the mobile world
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Navigation, Mobile on
Some of the more interesting aspects of this years MWC were our conversations with the two main mapping data providers. These aren’t the folk who write your GPS software - they’re the folk who capture the mapping data that’s used by your navigation devices to show you where you are, and to plan your routes.
There’s been some consolidation in the mapping market - Navteq is now owned by Nokia, and Tele Atlas is part of TomTom’s expanding mapping empire. The new relationships aren’t just giving Nokia and TomTom direct access to the mapping data they need. They’re also giving the maps a whole new source of data, feeding back live data from the many millions of navigation devices out there. Instead of having to buy data about the traffic conditions on the M4, live data from PNDs can give the map vendors real time information on just where there’s congestion, and on how traffic is flowing. There’s no need to get data from every piece of hardware out there, either, as Nokia Research has shown that you only need to instrument around 3% of the vehicles on the road to get a statistically valid real time model.
Real time road data is easy to get - there are enough TomTom systems out that have opted into returning traffic and route data to cover the entire European road network four times a day, and once a day for the US. It’s what you do with it that’s more important. Tele Atlas’ database of traffic conditions in major conurbations around the world has a 5 minute resolution for every day of the year. If a navigation application takes that data as part of its routing algorithms it can give you a route that takes into account, as well as letting you develop what-if scenarios. Real time traffic data mixed with historic data can also help navigation software determine if a re-routing is necessary - or if the congestion ahead will dissapate before you’re due to reach it.
Maps also need to be more personal. We don’t go to an address or an intersection - we go to a place. If it’s a shop or a theatre, perhaps we want to go to the nearest car park. If we’re looking for petrol we probably don’t want to backtrack (unless the next petrol station en route is much much to far away, and the one behind is very close indeed). Navigation is changing to deal with these issues, and the underlying map data has to expose the information that’s needed to make these decisions.
Then there’s the explosion in data. GPS maps aren’t just for cars any more - and simply ignoring one way streets doesn’t turn mapping data into pedestrian maps. The mapping providers are having to develop much more detailed city maps that allow you to cross parks and squares, and to use passageways that may not appear in road data. There’s a lot to be done here, from mapping entrances and exits of underground stations, to determining the timetables for public transport. The future of mapping is multi-modal, managing journeys that start in a car, switch to a ferry, and then to an underground train, then foot.
Mapping providers have a lot of problems - and a lot of tools to help solve them. We won’t see the benefits right away, but over the next year or so we’ll start seeing maps that are more accurate, routes that are more responsive to traffic, and pedestrian routes that actually understand the geography of cities.
–Simon
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