Session type: Main Conference Talk

The era of spatial computing is here. Augmented and virtual reality is more accessible to creators, designers, and end users than ever before bringing new opportunities for applications and digital experiences that enhance the world as we know it. This is especially true of mobile computing with over 75% of Android users and 94% of iOS users having a device capable of accessing augmented reality easily over the web without the need to download an app. With advanced spatial awareness capabilities like LIDAR on the most recent smartphone models, spatial computing represents a paradigm shift similar to what we saw when the original iPhone changed the way we think of mobile design and development. In this talk we'll explore how IA and UX practitioners can get started in spatial computing through the lens of a real-world augmented reality case study.

Recently our team of designers and data engineers worked on a challenge to create an augmented reality interface for first responders, leveraging IoT sensor data to improve communications and make critical decisions faster in a disaster response. Our first step was to identify and organize the universe of data relevant to the disaster scenario, a flood emergency. Through early collaboration with our data team to organize and map the information to real world use cases, we identified an opportunity to develop a predictive model that could help first responders in the field visualize critical data in the context of the physical world and the areas of most critical risk and need.

Addressing the need to quickly make decisions and take action, we were further able to leverage augmented reality to visualize predictive models created by our data team, enabling the ability to visualize not only conditions in the present but also where the most likely areas of critical need would be in the future. This presented the opportunity to accelerate the time to proactively make critical decisions about things like road closures, business & residential notification, and deployment of personnel with the potential to operate more efficiently and most importantly safe lives.

While the project represents an early proof of concept, the importance of information architecture and collaboration early in the design process had strong benefits for helping those new to working with new technology become familiar with the opportunity for and challenges of spatial computing and immersive experiences.

To conclude, we'll review and discuss how to apply these familiar IA and UX practices and techniques and combine them with new ones for working in 3D to a broad range of applications for augmented and virtual reality applications like education, training, immersive storytelling, and more.

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that the way we think about, well… everything has to change, including the way we think about work and leadership.

In this session, we will explore the differences between remote and in-person leadership, challenges and opportunities created by physical distance, and how to prevent it from also becoming emotional and intellectual distance.

We start from a set of questions we’ve asked ourselves both in the past and more recently:

• How do you create and maintain connection and trust when you cannot look someone in the eye or walk by their desk?
• How do you oversee work, advice, mentor and help people grow at a distance?
• How does a team that can’t get together, stay together?
• What kind of additional or different support does your team (and you) need?
• And more…

Everybody does it. Information architects do it. UX designers do it. Product managers do it. Even content strategists do it. They all ask questions. It's part of the work. You're asking users about how they accomplish tasks. You're asking clients about business needs. You're asking developers about technical constraints. Not a day – or hour! - goes by without you asking someone a question. I believe, to paraphrase Erika Hall, the question is the most important tool in our toolbox.

Have you ever thought about how you ask question? I mean, really thought about it? We use them all the time, and yet we don’t have much guidance on how to form them, how to tinker with them, or even how to critique them. In this talk, Dan will draw on decades of experience to reflect on the questions we use day-in and day-out to get input from users, gather domain knowledge, solicit feedback from colleagues, and run brainstorming sessions. Our questions have a purpose — the type of information they will bring into focus. They have an intent — a desired effect on the relationship between asker and answerer. And they may be tweaked and adjusted — the framing of the question itself to meet both purpose and intent. By the end, you’ll have a greater appreciation for the question, the most important tool in our toolbox.

You've been there before. You thought you could trust someone with a secret. You thought it would be safe, but found out later that they blabbed to everyone. Or maybe they didn't share it, but the way they used it felt manipulative. You gave more than you got and it didn't feel fair. But now that it's out there, do you even have control anymore?

Ok. Now imagine that person was your supermarket. Or your bank. Or your boss.

As designers of digital spaces for consumer products and services, how often do we consider the relationship we have with our customers? What does they need to know about us and what do we need to know about them before we can say we are “in a relationship”?

• Are we spying on our users? Do they know what information we are collecting about them? Or how we collect that information?
• Are we manipulating users? How much information is really needed? Are we gathering more than we need, just because we can? Are we using it to force actions the users wouldn't normally make?
• Are we keeping our promises? Are we being good custodians of our user's information? Who are we sharing it with? Do we know what they do with our user's information?
• Are we designing dark patterns without knowing it? Also, is the term “Dark Pattern” itself a dark pattern?

In this talk, Noreen Whysel will discuss a framework for evaluating the relationship that digital technologies have with consumers and the digital harms and dark (or anti-) patterns that, whether we know it or not, violate that relationship. You will come away with an understanding of how to determine that what you are creating is fair, secure and in the user’s control. And that your relationship will be sound, respectful and long lasting.