AR as a Pedagogical Tool
This post is part of a series where we’ll explore how technology can change our perspective by writing and designing novel products every week this year.
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Imagination is a funny thing because it can make us believe that we know something that we, in reality, do not.
Suppose you’re trying to convince your friend the environmental impact of the burger they are in line for. You may tell them that 1lbs of beef requires 1,799 gallons of water. Or that a ¼ lbs burger patty requires 460 gallons of water.
And after barfing data all over the counter, you may feel like you’ve given your friend the right weight to balance on their moral compass: Enjoy the next five minutes, vs. save water for posterity.
The answer, of course, is invariably to order the burger.
One issue is that when we imagine how delicious that burger would be, our imagination lines up close to reality. Imagining 460 gallons of water, however, is a different story. For most people, their closest encounter to such a scale is the five-gallon bucket they occasionally see at Home Depot or besides street performers. But this doesn’t help, because we’re really bad at estimating.
And even if we did estimate it, we’d probably wave it off because we don’t know how to emotionally relate to it. Even having it extrapolated for us, as in the image above, we can’t really feel it, because we’re just looking at symbols. Looking at a picture of the Grand Canyon doesn’t overwhelm you the way walking across it would.
Bridging Imagination and Reality
One of the promises of augmented reality is that it creates a bridge between imagination and reality.
AR brings information into our context. It can show us everything from a 1:1 model of a new furniture for our living room, to a 1:∞ model of the universe and its scale.
But here’s the rub: In scaled models, we know things relatively, which means we are not emotionally connected to it since it’s reference point is not our reality. On the other hand, the magnificence of a 1:1 model is lacking since, if it can be shown life-size, you probably imagined it pretty accurately.
The environmental impact problem is interesting, not only because it is an important topic that has a lasting impact, but also because it lies in between what’s known and fully imagined.
With AR we can grab a 1:1 model of something that most people can imagine or have seen (a 5 gallon bucket), then trivially create many of those around the users to envelop them and give them that emotional awe. In other words, we’re cutting out where we fail (extrapolation), while using what we’re good at (recall).
Since we’re creating a pedagogical tool and not a tech demo, we need to continually think about how we can meet the user where they’re at.
The reality is that most people will probably experience AR on the couch because walking around digital content is a new idea. Taking this into account, the UI is designed to exist alongside the AR, yet still act like a screen UI (tappable). In doing so, we move the high barrier action (moving physically), to after we’ve demonstrated the experience’s value (an augmented reality).
Finally, just as we design for the experience to work in the physical context of where the users are at, we should design the experience to fit into their mental context as well. If a user has not seen a 5 gallon bucket, the experience is no better than an infographic. By allowing the users to swap out different relative models, we can bring their imagination closer to their known reality. For example, we can swap a five-gallon bucket for a two-liter soda bottle.
TL;DR
Humans are bad at estimating. Even if we estimate, we don’t know how to emotionally react because it’s still made up. We can use augmented reality to bridge that gap by relating things we know to things we don’t know. In doing so, we can help people understand the world around them, aligning our imagination to a ground truth. Technology should meet us where we’re at.
P.s I’ll be the first to admit that looking at an AR experience won’t stop you from ordering a burger anymore than an infographic or a report. Nor should it. Technology should inform our life, not direct it.
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Photo by Pablo Merchán Montes on Unsplash
Five-Gallon bucket 3D model by Daniel Doran
