TrekGlance
TrekGlance employs Augmented Reality in bringing users information at a glance. In a National Park or National Forest setting, TrekGlance utilizes location services and displays information about various paths in the park or forest. The system uses GPS and can detect the direction a user is facing. The motivation behind the system is in creating a way for users to remain immersed in the environment, while being able to access information. Similar to how the mobile phone allowed users to access information on the go, TrekGlance aims to allow users to access information while remaining engaged in their activity.
Formative Study
For our formative study, we did a combination of interviews, a photo diary study, and cultural probe. We conducted 7 interviews to better understand hikers, their thoughts, and experiences. We then had 4 people complete a photo diary during a hike and a cultural probe after their hike. For the photo diary, they were asked to take at least 10 pictures while on their hike. For the cultural probe, we asked them to illustrate an imaginary device they think could have helped them on their hike and write a postcard to someone describing their experience. The diary study and probe helped us better understand the values and needs of hikers and their thoughts during and after hiking.
After analyzing the results from our formative study, we revised our research questions to help narrow down our focus and explore different tensions that appeared from our research, such as comfort vs exploration, capturing vs enjoying moments, and controlled planning vs impromptu planning. We designed 5 user enactments to explore these tensions. Our user enactments allowed us to test different design concepts, such as glasses and a notification system, and helped us better understand key factors that can influence a person’s hike.
Key Insights
People are interested in information related to exploring and touring while on their hike. Our user research indicated that being able to explore sights while hiking is important and our participants were interested in technology that would allow them to visualize or hear more about different possible exploration areas. We thought creating a technology to support this desire would be important for users who cannot find such information before their trip. This insight helped form the purpose of our final design.
|
While testing our idea for a system that allows people to record and share videos of their hiking experiences publicly, our user enactment participants brought up concerns with privacy. While they liked the idea of being able to view curated videos of other people’s hiking experiences in order to gain more information about the hiking area, they were uncomfortable being recorded by others because they did not want to be seen in a public video. For 4 out of 5 UE participants, they behaved differently when knowing their friend was recording a public video. They would actively avoid the camera or avoid saying anything. This insight helped shape what kind of information our system would capture and what context our system would be used in.
|
Another insight we discovered was that people are willing to tolerate a certain level of intrusiveness while hiking. A tension we explored in our UEs were whether people are comfortable with using technology while hiking or if they prefer to avoid technology in order to connect more with nature. Our UEs tested different ideas of technology while hiking such as glasses and notification system. Our participants said that as long as the system is useful, they would be open to using it while hiking. This insight helped us design the form of our final system.
|
System Concept & Proposal
TrekGlance employs Augmented Reality in bringing users information at a glance in a national park or national forest setting. It utilizes a GPS location service and displays information about various paths in the park or forest. TrekGlance also detect the direction a user is facing and provides information about the route that lies in front of them.
TrekGlance has 3 main features:
TrekGlance makes use of the following three elements to enable the above features and form the informational layer of our system:
During implementation, we would work with national park services to help us deploy and maintain the system. Park operators would be responsible for content curation. Park rangers would be responsible for the daily maintenance including creating content and customer service. The support staff would be responsible for hardware maintenance and updating, as well as managing web services and updating the information being displayed. Lastly, the end users who would pay a fee to use access the parks and use the glasses.
TrekGlance has 3 main features:
- Information display: TrekGlance will show the user relevant information to their location, time, and hike, such as weather, route difficulty, route length, percentage of route completed, etc.
- Preview path: Not only does TrekGlance provide the user with information about various hikes and trails, TrekGlance will also show a short video clip of the upcoming paths to allow the user to make informed hiking decisions.
- Detour suggestor: TrekGlance encourages hikers to explore by suggesting detours to alternative routes or attractions.
TrekGlance makes use of the following three elements to enable the above features and form the informational layer of our system:
- Preview database: Stores the pictures and videos that pop up when users want to preview an upcoming path
- Location service: A location service (such as GPS) allows the system to detect the user’s location in the area and display information based on that location
- Orientation detector: Detects the movement of the user and triggers certain information based on the movement.
During implementation, we would work with national park services to help us deploy and maintain the system. Park operators would be responsible for content curation. Park rangers would be responsible for the daily maintenance including creating content and customer service. The support staff would be responsible for hardware maintenance and updating, as well as managing web services and updating the information being displayed. Lastly, the end users who would pay a fee to use access the parks and use the glasses.
*Source Footage: The Beauty of the Irrational and Youtube hiking videos
Prototype
Key Features:
- Visualizations: In our system proposal, the visualizations would be triggered by location. However, since current location services are not always accurate and sometimes difficult to work with, we created AR markers as our triggers. Whenever our camera detected an AR marker, the corresponding visualization (information display) and video (preview path / preview detour) would appear. To replicate how the information would display from the glasses, we created a HUD with an LED display that shows different information visualizations based on the AR marker.
- Form factor: We created the physical sunglasses using a laser cutting tool. Adjustments had to be made in order to attach the camera and HUD.
Reflection
The major limitation of our design is that it is somewhat heavy and fragile, making it difficult to wear, move, and carry around. Ideally, the next step would be to conduct usability testing with our target users and in a more suitable environment (outdoors). Therefore, we would need to work on making the design sturdier and more portable, perhaps by using a stronger material to construct the glasses and using longer cables to connect the system to the computer in order to allow the user to move around more. Because there are so many localization techniques (RFID, Bluetooth, GPS, sensors, etc), it would definitely be interesting to incorporate the location services for prototyping purposes, even if they are not always so accurate.
Once we improve the design, we would conduct pilot sessions where we would test our product with actual users. Local hiking locations like the Arboreteum would be ideal, but getting support from organizations with an untested product might be difficult. Outdoor tours that combine physical activity, the need for information, and being outside would be the next choice. Locally, Savor Ann Arbor offers custom tours and architecture tours are popular within Stamps for new architecture students.
Another concern with our design is that it can be seen as a specialized version of Google Glass, which is deemed by most people to be a failure. Google Glass had many criticisms, especially with the form factor and privacy concerns (similar to our own research participants). However, when the recent hype and popularity surrounding Spectacles by Snap[chat], this does seem to an indication that people would be interested in a sunglasses-like system that you can wear in order to interact with information. Spectacles look like a regular pair of sunglasses and have a specific niche (recording and sending snaps to your friends). Given the appropriate and specific context and form factor, we believe TrekGlance might also have the potenial to suceed in the future.
Once we improve the design, we would conduct pilot sessions where we would test our product with actual users. Local hiking locations like the Arboreteum would be ideal, but getting support from organizations with an untested product might be difficult. Outdoor tours that combine physical activity, the need for information, and being outside would be the next choice. Locally, Savor Ann Arbor offers custom tours and architecture tours are popular within Stamps for new architecture students.
Another concern with our design is that it can be seen as a specialized version of Google Glass, which is deemed by most people to be a failure. Google Glass had many criticisms, especially with the form factor and privacy concerns (similar to our own research participants). However, when the recent hype and popularity surrounding Spectacles by Snap[chat], this does seem to an indication that people would be interested in a sunglasses-like system that you can wear in order to interact with information. Spectacles look like a regular pair of sunglasses and have a specific niche (recording and sending snaps to your friends). Given the appropriate and specific context and form factor, we believe TrekGlance might also have the potenial to suceed in the future.