Of UX and Moccasins (not just Augmented Reality Moccasins)

I'm sitting here eating microwave popcorn and basically, trying to find a reason *not* to work on my AR engine/framework. I'm sure those reading know the feeling. You spend weeks or often months working on something, whether it's a piece of software or art or a book or a back deck - then suddenly, you've sort of hit a wall. The work is coming along fine but there are all these little things that still need to be done.



Some people go fishing. Some binge watch TV. Some play video games. It's an outlet - a way to recharge and get one's motivation back.



I write and I cartoon. (Is cartoon a verb? Well, it is now!)

I don't just blog (in fact, I was very surprised at the response to my last post...positive, I mean. A lot of people must be interested in AR issues). I also write novels (in fact, I just finished my second romance...neither published yet because I don't think I've perfected the first in the series, so that the second, third and fourth will flow correctly. And as for the novels I have published on Nook. (No, those aren't romance. They are supernatural thrillers. I don't write a particular genre, I write about strong female characters having adventures.) Anyway, I have to rewrite them...there are still little mistakes here and there and happily Nook will update any eBooks already out there...but regardless, that's what got me into doing my own AR engine as a breakaway!! And now the AR engine has got me needing another recharge.)

Life is funny, isn't it?

I also cartoon. The purpose is threefold. One, get my frustrations out in a constructive way (especially about injustices I see or have experienced, and with some of our current cultural choices, too.) Two, see if the cartoons generate any interest from the community at large - including "pity clicks" as right now I'm between gigs so every bit helps. And third, and perhaps most important, art requires practice - a lot of practice and "just doing". Only after spending a lot of time practicing with the tools (whether traditional or digital), do you eventually get a good feel for the tools and how to use them. Only then does what's in your head begin to transfer correctly to the paper (digital or otherwise.)

Besides, content is king. It always has been and as much as many would like to believe tech is king, it's only a tradesman at the door. Every game creator knows that the 'fun' factor is the most important factor in a successful game  (or app) - and while there may be people (those early adopters) that worship tech and buy every new gadget, most people want 'fun'.

Fun is not AR or VR or Xbox or the newest phone or tablet or desktop or <pick something>...  

Fun is the experience, the "user experience."

For me, fun is equivalent to high engagement. You likely don't know (because I didn't mention it) but I've spent a good portion of my life (so far) thinking about communication, engagement and stereotypes. I was working in user experience/user interface design long before they had those names. Back then, it was simply interface design with a lot of cognitive science theory thrown in to help you try to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

That's all UX really is. SHOES (or Moccasins)  Commonsense - in the idea that you are trying to put yourself in someone else's moccasins and understand them better.

Then use that knowledge to design something that will lure them in. <evil laugh>

I wrote an entire master's thesis* on stereotypes, what caused them, how damaging they were to women (extending to other cultural minorities, too, of course) and ways to alter perceptions. That led me directly into intervention techniques and research, which led me to engagement (i.e. high internal motivation plus high interest).

In a word, if it's fun (not passion). I think fun is different than passion (a strong feeling about something). Because when something is fun, you will do it, learn it, and keep at it when things get tough - and in doing so, you are capable of breaking false messages that the culture may be sending to you.  Items like "girls don't like math", "math is hard" ... die Barbie!** 

**Sorry, Barbie, it's not you but the idiots that made you say such crap.

*though my adviser cringed at the length and depth and basically called it a dissertation instead.

So I've become good friends with engagement and engagement techniques. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about other people's shoes. Way back, I thought about UI design and presenting sonar information to ordinary sailors that had no real experience with computers, much less sonar data. (Things are different now. I'll bet today's sailors would find it hilarious to think that tens of years earlier, their predecessors had trouble with the idea of virtual buttons on a screen and 'how to scroll'.)

I've thought about how researchers think and what they expect in a website. I've compared website designs (comparative analysis) to try to understand why people thought Google was faster than MSN, Yahoo!, AltaVista, or Dogpile (remember Dogpile?) (Hint: it wasn't actually faster, but the design encouraged people to think it was!)

And of course, I've thought about AR and VR, back when AR was simply a HUD and VR was blocky scanlines in 3D -- or later, the UW HIT lab's work on 'how to get over a fear of spiders.' (It was one use of VR, to desensitize a person who was afraid of spiders by interacting with a 'silly' VR spider.)

It comes back to moccasins. And why the Desktop Metaphor was a tremendous breakthrough in user experience. Make the computer GUI feel the same as a desk - i.e. give users a reference they already understand.

We now have the room metaphor (a 3D version of the Desktop). We have big rooms, wide rooms, different worlds, telepresence, embodiment, how to manipulate with your hand (and why a wand interface isn't so great if you aren't in an FPS shooter) and so on. In fact, we have so many new terms to describe old things or common sense thinking, that I find it way too confusing.

And I refuse to use most of those terms, and forgive me, but I tend to roll my eyes when a young PhD or Masters student from the Media Lab starts to tell me how (in one case) she invented this new thing where "it's like a meme, but with graphics that repeat, a sensory experience, no sound but containing and conveying more information in the execution of that visual than...."<heavily paraphrasing>

Yes, I've heard of it. We call that a GIF.

Now I'm sure that new media researchers have good intentions, and perhaps variations on old themes that might qualify as something new, but nothing is new under the sun and in the end, it's still about moccasins. If you're relying on "well, it's that way, because." but can't answer "because why?", then you're putting style over substance, or worse, design fad over commonsense. Meaning: don't do something because you read it somewhere (including here!), or some lecturer told you so. (About fifteen years ago, I remember one faculty person telling me never to use Frames in websites, but when I asked why, he couldn't say. Instead he got hostile "just because...it's wrong, that's all." Another professor told our class (and likely did that over time to hundreds or even thousands of students) that everything on the Internet was free, so to go ahead and take a design or code or whatever (and when I queried about copyright or, at least, attribution, he actually said, "forget it. It's free. Just take what you want. You don't need to worry about stuff like that.") <not paraphrasing or at least, not much!>

Oh dear! Just to be clear, opensource started to gain popularity, in part, because of the expense of proprietary software. And copyleft and opensource licensing started, in part, because of IP theft, not just individuals but companies taking someone's open work and then filing patents on it and going after anyone that tried to use it. This still happens today, and one reason big companies file patents on everything (including items that have been open, standard and common techniques for years with the deluded federal patent system often allowing this behavior) is so that they can use these patents as weapons against their competitors. Though, to be fair, big companies tend to clean house a lot more than little ones - it's economics. They know they have more to lose in a patent lawsuit.

So give attribution, observe copyright, copyleft and license agreements, and call out those that don't. Don't assume though that they are doing it willfully. Educate them first, then see how they respond. But in general, appreciate the hard work people do, often all they are really asking for is recognition.

How do I approach UI/UX? I focus on 'fun' with a healthy dose of commonsense and moccasins.

Design an interface that the user finds "fun" (i.e. high engagement). Know your user and for example, don't assume that all AR or VR is about first person shooters. Don't try to create devices that aren't fun, whether they be heavy headsets or 3000-5000 dollar headsets, or just silly looking to wear in public (something Google Glass got right, btw). Or cumbersome wands or handsets that aren't remotely like hands! (Like I said, a wand has its uses, especially in FPS...but don't forget that just because you have a hammer, not everything is a nail.)

If you make the product, they will come....don't count on it! Make it fun, and when they do find it (if they find it), they'll likely stay with it for awhile.

Make your products, especially your UX, fun, so that people will put up with the problems that WILL come along. Make the visuals fun (and appropriate, of course, to the theme). But stop listening to 'design fad this or that', such as 3D buttons are cliche' and shouldn't be used on websites.  It's all relative, and maybe a 3D big red button is exactly what you need (and I guarantee you that the button that gets pushed the most...clicked...is that massive 3D one!)

As for what I've learned about AR/VR UI/UX, in particular.... Well, I'll save that for the next few posts, if people are interested. Keep in mind though, they are my opinions. Opinions I've gained after a long time in the field and a lot of reading and researching, true...but still, nothing more really than my own impressions and feelings on the matter.

Yep, I will post again soon - though I am about ready tackle some of those niggles camera calibration walkthrough problems I mentioned in the last post - but maybe I'll post as I work them out. (But don't be surprised if I'm grouchy. I'm always grouchy when I'm debugging!)

And yes, I intend to do a lot more comics, too. As I also mentioned before, I will also need to work on a lot of Content for my first demo 3D/AR/VR book. It's a challenge I welcome. I like using tools like Maya and Painter (not so much Blender, but hey, it's gotten better over time and it's free), but as you might be able to tell from my first demo content, it wasn't a complete success visually. It was good in other ways...the Wickerman there looked like a man, had a very high vertex count (Unity had to slice him up something good to get him loaded!) that really stressed the performance of the demo app, and had a watercolor painted look that is definitely more in line with an illustration from a book than it would be in a typical 3D 'game'. I got comments on that, generally along the lines that "it didn't look like a 3D character should look, and neither did the 'sketch style' mini game". It wasn't supposed to look like Halo or any number of other smooth graphic games and I suspect other games/app that try for unusual looks may meet with similar frowns.

It only goes to show how people are even now stereotyping AR/VR and how 3D characters should 'look'.  Think about illustrations across media - do you really want only one look?


Ugly Bunny was similar, though his main purpose was to test performance and be a humorous way to shoot at Wickerman in a 'sketch' style 3D mini game. He's a favorite of mine when testing AR markers for the same reason. He may not look it, but he's around 10K vertices.

I need to break people of that view, that 3D has to look a certain way, I mean - especially in regards to books, as it would be a great loss in my mind, to lose the diversity of artwork we have now in books, and used to have in games and videos/films (though there is some diversity, don't get me wrong.)

We need to enable that diversity, nurture and encourage it. And that's another reason I'm working on AR (and VR) that is geared toward a book experience.