Sensory Seduction and Narrative Pull

User experience design is a process that has been defined, developed and refined over the last few decades. It is a process of shaping a user\u27s movements through a website or mobile application. It is user-focussed, prioritising utility, ease-of-use and efficiency. It is widely used and has helped advance the way in which users interact with websites and mobile applications, making it far less frustrating. User experience design is a key element in how the internet and mobile technology have become ubiquitous in our daily lives. Given this success, it would seem that continuing to use this process for new communication technologies would be the best way forward. However, it could limit the discovery of opportunities and uses for these new technologies. This paper looks at the importance of visual inquiry, experimentation and play for new technologies, particularly Augmented Reality (AR). AR is an emerging visual communication medium, and it is our contention that only through visual exploration and experimentation with the technology can a unique visual language emerge that will engage users in a manner befitting it. We explore the creative input that has helped shape the aesthetics of communication media at various points in history, from the humble poster to the internet aesthetic we know today, and look forward to the opportunities that lie waiting for the creation of new user experiences that have the sensory seduction and narrative pull that AR promises

Social semiotic analysis of the design space of augmented reality

Text is one of the multimodal components used in many augmented reality (AR) applications. Fulfilling the design goals of an application depends, to a large extent, on the successful design of these components. This paper examines the role of text in AR user interfaces from a social semiotic and linguistic perspective. Since analysis of the text in AR applications has mostly focused on aspects such as legibility, placement, occlusion-related issues and exploration of methods to overcome other visual challenges, we suggest that such a social semiotic and linguistic analysis of the textual content can provide insights into user interface and application design for AR researchers and developers. Our analysis suggests that the role of text in AR can differ, and depends, at least in part, on the type of text-image interaction of which it is a part.Brad Cameron, Christian Sandor and Peter Micka