1) Current AR experiences often lack social maturity and create anti-social interactions, but the technology is still young and can mature rapidly.
2) Nine design principles are proposed to increase the social intelligence of AR, including enhancing rather than replacing social interactions, building experiences that echo human expectations, ensuring AR elements are optional and avoid the uncanny valley.
3) Following local social norms for interactions is emphasized as the most important principle, and a framework is presented showing how AR experiences could evolve to be more socially integrated over time.
2. AR is evolving:
Technical probe >> social probe
Interaction patterns still limited
Creates ʻanti-socialʼ experiences
An example social AR experience...
6. Experience
“Anyone pointing a
device in my direction
to try to identify me
better be prepared for
either a law suit, or a
punch in the face.”
Anonymous Comment
7. Anti-social behavior and
interactions often indicate
low ʻsocial maturityʼ
Social maturity = ability to
• understand social dynamics
• follow social norms
• engage socially with others
• adapt to social situations
8. Bad News
Current AR experiences show
generally low social maturity.
Good News
Immaturity is common for
emerging media & spaces.
Technology ʻmaturesʼ rapidly,as
the rise of the Social / 2.0 Web.
AR is ʻyoung and malleableʼ.
9. Social Maturation Paths
Immature
Social Individual
Integrated w/ social contexts Optimized for individual contexts
Supports social dynamics Supports a/semi-social dynamics
Social interaction patterns Individual interaction patterns
15. Enhancement, Not Replacement
Enhance social
interactions, instead
of replacing them
with AR gimmicks.
Anti-pattern: “AR for ARʼs Sake”
lowers experience value in the
present, though creating comedy for
the future.
17. Build Real Bridges
Social technologies
succeed when they
enable people to
overcome genuine
barriers to interaction.
ʻBridgeʼ experiences are
valid only when interaction
is impossible.
21. Avoid the Critical Path
AR elements should
be ʻoptionalʼ for social
interactions.
Making AR elements
essential creates a ʻsingle
point of failureʼ.
22. Let People Manage Social
Complexity
Simple designs allow
people to manage
social complexity and
interactions as they
need and choose.
However, as a result of the inherently social nature of augmented reality, we can be sure the value and impact of many augmented experiences depends in large part on how effectively they integrate the social dimensions of real-world settings, in real time.
the social maturity of current augmented experiences is similar to that of a young child who is learning the complex rules and norms that determine socially acceptable behavior. With unevenly developed abilities and understanding, fitting into social situations is very difficult.
The contextual model for this interaction assumes that interrupted or delayed conversations are socially acceptable—though asynchrony is one of the most frustrating aspects of poorly mediated interactions. (‘Can you hear me now...?’) This scenario also depends on directed, gaze-based, device-powered scanning of faces at close personal distances. For strangers who have no affiliation, I would wager this experience is too similar to having a policeman stop you and ask you for identification for most people to consider it an acceptable social interaction. Even among people with existing, but weaker ties like the indirect relationships that loosely link colleagues in a large organization, this feels like a depersonalizing and inherently suspicious way of greeting someone. Using a device in this way also creates a physical barrier between people and, in terms of attention, shifts focus away from the person to the device and the information it presents. This hardly feels like an improvement over the everyday act of introducing yourself or joining a conversation group at a party.
The contextual model for this interaction assumes that interrupted or delayed conversations are socially acceptable—though asynchrony is one of the most frustrating aspects of poorly mediated interactions. (‘Can you hear me now...?’) This scenario also depends on directed, gaze-based, device-powered scanning of faces at close personal distances. For strangers who have no affiliation, I would wager this experience is too similar to having a policeman stop you and ask you for identification for most people to consider it an acceptable social interaction. Even among people with existing, but weaker ties like the indirect relationships that loosely link colleagues in a large organization, this feels like a depersonalizing and inherently suspicious way of greeting someone. Using a device in this way also creates a physical barrier between people and, in terms of attention, shifts focus away from the person to the device and the information it presents. This hardly feels like an improvement over the everyday act of introducing yourself or joining a conversation group at a party.
The contextual model for this interaction assumes that interrupted or delayed conversations are socially acceptable—though asynchrony is one of the most frustrating aspects of poorly mediated interactions. (‘Can you hear me now...?’) This scenario also depends on directed, gaze-based, device-powered scanning of faces at close personal distances. For strangers who have no affiliation, I would wager this experience is too similar to having a policeman stop you and ask you for identification for most people to consider it an acceptable social interaction. Even among people with existing, but weaker ties like the indirect relationships that loosely link colleagues in a large organization, this feels like a depersonalizing and inherently suspicious way of greeting someone. Using a device in this way also creates a physical barrier between people and, in terms of attention, shifts focus away from the person to the device and the information it presents. This hardly feels like an improvement over the everyday act of introducing yourself or joining a conversation group at a party.
The contextual model for this interaction assumes that interrupted or delayed conversations are socially acceptable—though asynchrony is one of the most frustrating aspects of poorly mediated interactions. (‘Can you hear me now...?’) This scenario also depends on directed, gaze-based, device-powered scanning of faces at close personal distances. For strangers who have no affiliation, I would wager this experience is too similar to having a policeman stop you and ask you for identification for most people to consider it an acceptable social interaction. Even among people with existing, but weaker ties like the indirect relationships that loosely link colleagues in a large organization, this feels like a depersonalizing and inherently suspicious way of greeting someone. Using a device in this way also creates a physical barrier between people and, in terms of attention, shifts focus away from the person to the device and the information it presents. This hardly feels like an improvement over the everyday act of introducing yourself or joining a conversation group at a party.
Anyone pointing a cell phone or any other device in my direction to try to "identify" me better be prepared for a either a law suit or a punch in the face.
Anonymous comment
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24639/?a=f
The Vineland Social Maturity Scale measures social competence, self-help skills, and adaptive behavior from infancy to adulthood. It is used in planning for therapy and/or individualized instruction for persons with mental retardation or emotional disorders. The Vineland scale, which can be used from birth up to the age of 30, consists of a 117-item interview with a parent or other primary caregiver. (There is also a classroom version for ages 3-12 that can be completed by a teacher.) Personal and social skills are evaluated in the following areas: daily living skills (general self-help, eating, dressing); communication (listening, speaking, writing); motor skills (fine and gross, including locomotion); socialization (interpersonal relationships, play and leisure, and coping skills); occupational skills; and self-direction. (An optional Maladaptive Behavior scale is also available.) The test is untimed and takes 20-30 minutes. Raw scores are converted to an age equivalent score (expressed as social age) and a social quotient.
Augmented reality could mature socially, properly understand social dynamics, and offer experiences that successfully integrate with the social sphere—providing truly social augmented experiences and accelerating its growth and relevance.
Without substantial social integration, augmented reality might remain restricted to a class of specialized utilities that are better suited for focused, asocial or semisocial activities like technical reference—one of the primary applications of augmented reality from the beginning.
Augmented reality and its bigger brother ubicomp, or everyware, make many new types of interactions and behaviors possible. The vast majority of these possibilities for augmented reality, however, simply would not be relevant to the way people socialize and interact, and some would be strange, unpleasant, or even harmful in certain contexts. When envisioning social augmented experiences, we should design interactions, behaviors, and situations that follow human norms and expectations by default.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jup3nep/2326524827/
Augmented reality should enhance real-world social interactions and situations rather than directly replacing them. Think of the classic sight gag in Airplane II. One character operates an elaborate, wall-sized video communications console to contact his commander at what seems like a far-away location. But in the middle of their conversation, the commander opens and walks through the video console, revealing it to be a simple door with an ordinary window, which they’ve been talking through as though it were a live video link.
Socially situated technologies succeed when they enable people to overcome real barriers to interactions and relationships. Augmented interactions can likewise succeed by bridging gaps between people and extending their social reach, as long as the augmented elements themselves are relevant and valuable.
Bridge to nowhere in New Zealand
But a bridge experience is valid only when social interaction is impossible for some reason. For example, people find each other in crowds using their mobile phones, then end the call as soon as they see one another.
Augmentations should be optional for the social interactions and settings they aim to enhance. Introducing an indispensable augmentation into a social interaction potentially makes the augmentation the single point of failure for the entire interaction. Apparently simple interactions like exchanging business cards are often finely nuanced social rituals with many layers of meaning. Think of Patrick Bateman and his colleagues scrutinizing the designs of their minutely different cards. AR designers should note that dozens of technologies and products have tried and failed to augment the exchange of business cards over decades. (Do you Poken? I have two of the devices, but given Poken’s low adoption rate, all I can do is Poken with myself.)
When defining the interactions and elements of augmented social experiences, remember that simple designs can successfully integrate with the complexity of people’s decisions and behavior, without directly managing them. On many mobile devices, the convenient buttons that activate the silent-ringing mode and mute conversations—like the mute button Figure 6 shows—provide simple solutions that effectively address the complexities of managing presence, attention, and disruption in social settings and contexts.
In 1970, roboticist Masahiro Mori identified the “Uncanny Valley,” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley] when he noticed that people interacting with robots that look and act like human beings respond with increasing empathy as the robots become more humanlike. However, when robots reach the point at which they seem very like real humans, but are still identifiably non-human, people’s empathic responses to them drop sharply, and people become repulsed by the robots. The name of this phenomenon echoes the shape of the data graph. The exact causes of the Uncanny Valley effect are unknown, but possible explanations include avoiding infection or recognizing genetic abnormalities when choosing a mate. Recent research with monkeys shows the same pattern of responses, so it is common across a broad range of senses for at least two members of the primate family. Very soon, it will be possible to create augmented experiences that incorporate realistic, but still ersatz human faces, voices, and movement that would invoke the Uncanny Valley effect.
Securities traders use this expression to make it clear that all parties to a deal must receive something of real value for an exchange to be successful. For traders, this means they must receive something they can use as the basis of another trade rather than something they must hold—as an investment—to gain some uncertain, future benefit.
For designers of augmented experiences, this means all of the elements and social interactions must be valuable to all of the people engaging with them. Otherwise, people will perceive the effort and costs of the augmentation as overhead or a burden of some sort. Further, the augmented elements must provide value within the context of a particular interaction rather than only within other contexts or for other purposes.
To paraphase William Gibson, augmented reality is here, but it is certainly not evenly distributed. Nor do people expect ordinary social experiences and interactions to be mixed realities that include significant augmented elements. Until consumers take mixed reality for granted as the norm, designers must indicate the presence and status of augmented elements in social AR experiences.
This simple guideline could trump all other AR design principles. Design AR experiences that follow the established norms for behavior and interaction in a social experience you are augmenting. In true inside-out fashion, this might mean that it is appropriate to take cues from those at the very bottom of the Uncanny Valley, as the characters in the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead realize when they must find a way to temporarily blend in with a large crowd of shambling undead to reach shelter. Keen-eyed students of behavior and design would note how the group carefully rehearsed their zombie impersonations, coaching one another to properly emulate the inchoate moans, semi-random shuffling, and stilted, slow-motion urgency that are typical of zombies—all to avoid the fatal consequences of bungling their unheimliche, or uncanny, first impression.