The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
- William Gibson, science fiction novelist.
Let’s go over some amazing stuff we can already do with a smart phone:
- Visual search of anything you can point your camera at?
- Talk-to-translate just say “Who am I”, click German, and hear “Wer bin ich”.
- Instantly recognize any song your hear on the radio or street?
Check! - Stream live video to multiple websites and get immediate feedbacks?
- Teleport yourself straight to work and back?
Check!
OK, that last item wasn’t really true, but some mad physicists are working on it.
more and more exciting services are being released every day, but they cater to a relatively small group of people: The ultra-connected, super-equipped geeks, and their tiny shiny clever phones.
The rest of the world (let’s call them “The Others”), gaze in awe and fear, and slowly retreat back to their caves, whispering “witch craft!”.
It’s not that they would not find use to all this wonderful technology, it’s just that the very thought of learning how to operate new gadgets completely paralyzes them.
Instead of blaming The Others for “not getting it”, maybe there is a way to make it more approachable?
Interaction design is all about context: putting what you need, where you need it.
Our whole interaction is done today through tiny screens. This results in shifting our focus away from the actual objects of interest (the road, the book we hold, the person we talk to, etc.).
Instead of shifting back and forth between Reality and your tiny phone for additional information,
imagine Reality itself would have layers of information projected directly over it.
This is, after all, where you actually need that extra information:
- Driving? A floating arrow to “turn left here” shows up in front of you.
- Walking past an interesting building? a bubble of historical information is projected in front of you.
- Holding a book in your hands? Live reviews instantly show up on the cover.
- Want to take a picture? A simple hand gesture will do the trick (no need to look through a camera).
Too good to be true? sure, but it’s also happening already!
In the video below, Pranav Mistry, a very clever and humble guy, demostrates the evolution of his ingenious solution.
Adding interactive layers to the Real World is probably one of the most powerful and game-changing trends we will see in the next years.
Now don’t you wish you could simply gesture a “thumb up” to add a positive comment to this post? 
Well, until then go ahead and type one…
It‘s quiet in here! Why not leave a response?