Formulating my plan for the app I aim to design has made me reflect back to areas I use in my everyday work - such as colour and adding new thoughts to these regarding social pholosophy.
The idea for an anxiety app came about because of personal experiences and the media's interest in mental health over 2020/21. Lockdown 3 brought forward a wave of exhaustion in the general population, we may not be in the 'same boat' but we are all in the 'same ocean'.
Through my research I came across a talk by Patrick Reipschlager (2018) speaking at a conference about AR. He spoke about the reality revolution, with gaming and the entertainment industry currently dominating the form. Reipschlager sees that AR is more useful in our world at the moment blurring the boarders between both. Its real time state changes, where AR items work within the world and this is done through out mobile devices has huge implications.
Reipschlager spoke about AR and what has to change so we can use the AR technology everyday:
Infra red tracking, tracks the room or environment.
Display and rendering - latency is an issue - makes people sick - the ultimate would be manipulating the optic nerve to see the AR world.
Threat to AR : lighting conditions if it is too bright the technology doesn’t work so well.
Ergonomics and aesthetics will be important. Everyone will wear AR glasses!
Reipschlager sees the Dangers for AR as:
Information overload - the need to use AR sparingly
Privacy and data security - individual tailoring - who gets access to my data….. these are the big questions….
Who controls the platforms - IOS Microsoft etc, ethical complications - we need to philosophise about this, think about how this will link with future society and look to the positive and negative aspects of our integration
Sociological changes… how important will it be to meet in person? Look to authors from the past thinking of the future 1984…
Military use - Hololense to be used on the battlefield… a big research project going on.
From this talk I wanted to think about the needs of the AR app and the audience, I had created a spot test group about the name, and the value of the app. I started to look back at colour theory and the importance of colour to the psyche and the aesthetics of choice.
Isaac Newton's colour theory of the 1660s was challenged by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his Theory of Colours in 1810. Goethe observed that colour arises at the edges, and the spectrum occurs where these coloured edges overlap, he annotated his work with notions of emotional connections to colours. Light within a spectral world, and an imagined space for the eyes receptors can induce feelings of calm, ease anxiety, and can promote happiness. Illustration below:
Colour will be an important element to the gamification of the app, the ability for the viewer to be able to change the water feature to reflect their mood via colour choice will be a key part of the experience.
I have developed some ideas around the look of the app and how interactions will take place. Here is an example storyboard of may thoughts so far...
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