The environments in which we interface with our computing devices have long since left the stationary confines of a solely desktop pc venue towards one encompassing a greater range of ambulatory experiences. Most apps present on commonly used consumer devices have not developed robust UX schemes to account for these variances on the attentional spectrum to adjust interaction parameters accordingly.
In today's paradigm, we interact with our smart phones/tablets with a predominately centralized focus in much the same way we have in the past with desktop computing. This has lead to a host of unintended societal as well as social consequences especially in regards to the development of youth. It is at this touchpoint that I aimed to incorporate some of these attention continuum design methodologies into the architecture of Mandorla. As a rule of thumb, technology should be designed to assist or either dovetail the human experience, not to eclipse it. The interaction affordances should shift in accordance to setting whether one is walking, in a social setting, stationary or a panoply of variations.
This continuum consists of focused(centralized), peripheral as well as implicit interactions. The goal with Mandorla is to allow users to seamlessly make these UX shifts in accordance to their context or preference.
In accordance with this vein of thought, I have structed Mandorla as following:
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▪ A recent UCLA study concluded that screen time decreased sensitivity to emotional cues in understanding the emotions of other people for developing youth. While multimedia based interactions do have their merits in some aspects of learning and development, it cannot be utilized as substitute for the tacit learning and interpersonal relational skills that derive from in person interactions.
(Source)▪ A 2015 study reported a correlation between social and emotional learnings and increased cognitive processing, feelings of well-being as well as academic performance achievement scores by up to 11%.
(Source)▪ Popular social media platforms have become the default public square for information broadcasts however some critics would argue that universities are ceding too much of the original essence of their institution and moderation control of freedom of speech and information control over to the tech giants. A relevant quote in this regard states:
"But isn’t it time for institutions of higher education to reclaim the real estate that was once theirs and build their own digital platforms as sites of interactive learning and exploration, intellectual conviviality and scholarly engagement, creative expression and academic debate?...But colleges and universities should acknowledge their dependence on Facebook for archiving their intellectual and social life and instead encourage community on their own platforms."
▪ In 2020, Facebook launched a Facebook campus product exclusively for college students in efforts to foster a more insular and private space for user networking in the context of academia. However as of this writing, it is only available to about 30 institutions of higher learning in the United States.
(Source)▪ A pew research study on gaming and university life found that almost 70% of college students in their survey reported regular active engagement with some form of electronic gaming media as a means of recreational work-life balance.
(Source)▪ A pew research study on gaming and university life found that almost 70% of college students in their survey reported regular active engagement with some form of electronic gaming media as a means of recreational work-life balance.(Source)▪ 98% of college students habitually utilize social media with roughly 30% spending more than six hours per week.
(Source)▪ Re-contextualize the campus into one of XR(cross reality) immersive potentials to be transformed into a playable landscape that is embedded and negotiated with technology with the ever becoming goal residing in the elevation of social capital currency in the establishment of human connections. Ask the important questions about what motivates people to participate in such a system, what is their process, and how can these smart environment social spatial attributes become a part of accessible, sustainable and valuable academic institutional futures?
(Source)▪ Explore usage of immersive information visualization formats to inform and engage users about campus community happenings. Here I surveyed a research project called post AR that chronicled the placement of mixed reality event posters affixed to varying locales on a university campus. Through surveys, it was determined that most onlookers of traditional posters did not follow-up with visiting the links for more information about events detailed on these flyers. This opportunity gap gave birth to PostAR which essentially allows users to delve into more information about the subject of the poster in augmented reality without having to navigate to a site but instead being at the site of the poster! It utilized the design notion of progressive disclosure inclusive of a customizable UI and multimodal feedback for system input including sound, visuals and haptic feedback. It presented some interesting design patterns for AR HMDs and hand gestural input for further UX research and potential prototype implementation. It is relevant to Mandorla because it deals with the user's customized interactive placement of information and UI triggers to delve into layers of granularity similar to the immersive posts in the app being designed.
(Source)▪ Essential needs for users of Mandorla would be features such as messaging, campus maps, wayfinding, institutional notifications and much more. Having all of these functions in one place along with the academic and social networking potentials of Mandorla via immersive interactions could potentially remove pain points in user adoption.
After surveying a few studies in relation to immersive technologies on university campuses, it lead to insights about the viability augmented reality media given the present smartphone/tablet paradigm as well as ideas upon how to implement immersive posts tied to geographical locations.
The first study dealt with wayfinding on school campuses, it was discovered that most of the students had not had experience with augmented reality besides brief instances of gaming and were a bit hesitant to partake. Yet, after trying out navigation with AR to find a certain building on campus, they found it to be an enjoyable experience that was substantially more helpful towards achieving their wayfinding end goals than simply a 2D map projection alone. It was also uncovered that some of the main barriers to the mass adoption of AR content is the lack of development platforms outside of gaming as well as the accessibility and human factors concerns such as holding up the smartphone in order to view virtually embedded content of the surroundings. This gives valuable information to be considered when performing a prioritization matrix for the Mandorla. It could be the case that the augmented reality function of this app will not be developed robustly until the ubiquitous availability and mass adoption of AR HMDs. Nevertheless it is useful for future developmental projections.
The next study was an AR tour experience research article which gave perspective into how a prebuilt augmented reality journey can be constructed with the utilization of GPS in tandem with computer vision feature point detection of certain elements in the tourist attraction vista. This gave insight on how to construct environmental UX with virtual contextual information tags in the form of multimedia on site in a format and subject vein other than entertainment gaming. Having this form of virtual information availability in situ leads to a more fluid, intuitive and naturalistic experience to enrich specific tourist experiences. This could in part be applicable to Mandorla because the app is a multifunctional smart campus platform that can be utilized to help orient participants of the university community to the campus in a curated fashion to help them achieve the end goals of networking, navigation or services discovery in the context of simulated and actual campus settings.
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