Lecture 07, 08 & 09 : Ideate, Sketch, Use and Evaluate

Ideating at least three potential human abilities enhancing apps in AR.

Okay so right out of the gate when I heard enhacing human abilities I immediatly thought about sports because this is where our most basic abilities as animals are displayed. I’m not a huge sports person and that’s because I’m not that good at coaching myself. I either lack motivation or advices to successfully complete programs / exercises. That’s why I would to introduce you to A(R)pollon. Well Appolon is the god of many things and sports is one of his mandates. This idea came to my mind because of the problems I’m facing but also because my older sister is a sports teacher and she own a health band. She likes it a lot because it’s useful for a quick feedback after her session, but she is bothered to check for her vitals during her effort. Thus a good app to enhance your abilities and to perfectly manage your body (thus getting better performances) would be a one monitoring your body during the effort. You’ll have access to your cardiac rythm, your blood pressure your speed etc. And the app would advise you to run slower, faster breathe deeper to perform at your peak.

The second idea that I had to improve human abilities using AR would be the app LibrARy. I’m a book worm and my family offers me a lot of books but it’s hard to keep track of all of them. I wanted something to better organise and classify my books without loosing informations about them and I wanted to quickly have information about anything. The app would basically scan your library once you enter it, you could use your voice to search for an author or a title and the app would immediatly show where it is located. You’d have numerous informations (from the internet, your feedback or personnal informations about this book).

Finaly the third idea that I had was an AR tool to help ice breaking between strangers. During my first year internship it was pretty hard to blend into the company. I didn’t know anybody I could not remember everyone and I was terribly shy as a result… To solve it I would have wanted a live organizational chart that would have truly helped me. Basically this would allow you to recognize your colleagues, remind you the last time you were in a meeting with them etc.

Prototyping and feedback

I decided to prototype the Organizational chARt. And here is my prototype :

Basically two cardboard straws taped to my phone with a note stuck at the end. The entire structure allows the user to use the camera as an idea to what it would look like irl.

Julen told me after use that he had a few remarks : for him the app should not be on a phone because it would be bothering and kind of akward to scan people’s faces all the time. Maybe if this was used by a lot of people it would not be as bothering but still. He imagined that it would have looked better with glasses maybe or something more discrete. Finally he raised the potential issues of such a practice ; he said that he would not mind being put into a database but he is not sure that everyone would agree with that…