Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is an experience where designers enhance parts of users’ physical world with computer-generated input. Designers create inputs—ranging from sound to video, to graphics to GPS overlays and more—in digital content which responds in real time to changes in the user’s environment, typically movement.

While AR and VR hardware and software is changing dramatically, UX principles and techniques for 3D interaction design will remain consistent. It’s just that new opportunities and sensitivities will present themselves to designers and developers.

The 2010s witnessed a technological explosion—for example, with Microsoft’s HoloLens in 2015—that stretched beyond AR in the classical sense, while AR software itself became increasingly sophisticated, popular and affordable

You design for digital elements to appear over real-world views, sometimes with limited interactivity between them, often via smartphones. Examples include Apple’s ARKit and Android’s ARCore (developer kits), the Pokémon Go game. AR designers made huge strides in the 2010s—a decade full of invaluable AR lessons and examples while the required sensors became cheaper. Pokémon GO is noteworthy, a GPS-oriented app that “inserts” Pokémon characters into users’ environments so users can find and capture them on device screens. Google’s AR stickers are another prime example; users drop realistic images into their camera shots. Users find AR particularly appealing for its entertainment value. Still, AR’s mainstream future appears assured across a wide range of applications, including education inside museums. With AR applications, you can bring experiences closer to users in their own environments through designs that are more directly engaging, personalized and—indeed—fun.

AR or augmented reality has gone from pipe dream to reality in just over a century. There are many AR applications in use or under development today, however – the concept will only take off universally when UX designers think about how they can integrate AR with daily life to improve productivity, efficiency or quality of experiences.

With AR, AP Media is able to create spaces that blurs the reality between the physical and digital space. With businesses pivoting towards the digital space as the new norm for their events and festivals, AR naturally becomes the next step in a hybrid event that showcases the strengths of both physical and digital spaces, allowing them to tap onto each other’s strengths to create the event of the future