(Article Summary) Media Studies, Mobile Augmented Reality, and Interaction Design

The mobile augmented reality is the new technology that integrates the real-world with digital information, for example, the augmented reality trail guide application described in this article which offers two views, one with the already known Google style map view that shows points of interest over the surface of the map, and a second view that appears when the phone is turned up and displays information about the points of interest floating in the space of the real view in that point of time.

This article examines how the humanistic disciplines of media studies are related with this new digital media interaction design. Media studies aim is to understand the role and influence of the traditional media (Film, Television, Radio and print) in our culture. Some media studies approach digital media only from the analytical perspective, which differs from the practice in HCI, therefore it is important to find a balance between these two angles. Then the question again is which aspects of the theory collected on previous traditional media studies can help to design these new media technologies. One can be the history. The history can helps us understand how people perceive things, for example, why something is aesthetical pleasing or not, and we can integrate that knowledge with new forms of media and create new types of relations with the environment through the use of technology, like the example of the AR trail guide where the user has the map view which requires us to understand concepts like how the map is oriented, or the symbols that are used to represent specific location, etc. on the contrary, the AR view give us an immediate understanding of our visual field where the symbols are only the markers that float with additional information of the objects in the visual scene making this experience aesthetically different. Another media component that is not well know is the Panorama. New mobile applications allow to take multiples exposures rotating the phone and stich them together using some software to create panoramic projections. These Panoramic projections are being used to create enhanced user experiences, for example the application tourWrist, allows you to see the panorama as if you were taking a picture, using your wrist, which gives the user a totally different experience compared with the traditional 360 view where you have to use you mouse or your fingers.

These AR Panoramic experiences are considered as polyaesthetic in two ways, one is a combination of senses (sound, sight and touch) and the other one is that we see ourselves here and there, we see our physical surrounding beyond the phone and we see another world in the screen where we can also move it around.  This polyaesthetic concept can be extended to the digital design as well.

In summary the blend of immerse experiences and multiple panoramas is still a relatively unexplored field for aesthetic design that could offer new interactions for the user with the technology; also the use of historical media studies perspective can help to integrate and understand our current cultural environment to identify aspects that contribute with the improvement of digital and interaction design experiences.

Reference:

Bolter, Maria Engberg, and Blair MacIntyre. 2013. Media studies, mobile augmented reality, and interaction design. interactions 20, 1 (January 2013), 36-45.DOI=10.1145/2405716.2405726