Captives of Convenience
As we begin a new age of computing, what can we learn from previous gold rushes to create new and meaningful experiences?
Spatial computing might just be the most exciting new interaction paradigm since touch screen smartphones and apps. It might not feel like it yet, of course, as virtual, augmented, and extended reality technologies have been slowly taking shape over the last few decades but not without a fair few false starts.
When new technologies and interaction paradigms do enter the industry there’s almost always a rush of excitement from agencies, startups and fast moving organisations to be the first to demonstrate that they understand these new environments, channels or technologies.
We’ve seen this cycle over and over again, from the dot com boom, smartphone apps, web3 technologies like blockchain and NFTs, the Metaverse, and now with AI. Whilst some of these have proven the test of time, others are still solutions searching for problems and compelling end-user cases.
“At ZeroSixty we approach new technologies like these as new tools and canvases to play with. Some of these are naturally transient, but when they prove their worth and persist, they change how businesses need to engage and create content in the future.”
We like to track and evaluate these new interaction modalities carefully for this very reason, assessing value potential and experimenting using real-world use cases to explore these possibilities for ourselves and our clients.
The benefit of looking both ahead and back at these technologies is appreciating that just as tech evolves, so do our expectations with regards to experience and interactions. As users, consumers, and humans, our expectations are now higher than ever. We become accustomed to the best mainstream experiences as benchmarks for what our next one should be.
The challenge of the old model
But herein lies the challenge. As every hype cycle to date has shown us, the early experiences we see are often lacking from a user experience point of view. They are often compromised through the limitations of first mover zeal and the local maxima of the technology at the time.
“Take a look at the first wave of what we are seeing in augmented and extended reality. The majority of experiences reflect outdated paradigms – flat screens placed into 3D space. A hangover from old interaction models that feel like transitional imposters in a new world.”
Some rightly argue that this aping of old interactions is the necessary forerunner to the next generation of interactions; transitional, yes, but because of their inherent awkwardness they become the foundation for new models to be created. However, we’ve seen these transitions happen in the past and, in some cases, act as costly misdirects too.
For example, when mobile apps were taking off after 2008, the shortcut for companies to get their existing front-ends quickly into apps were crude ports of web pages instead of utilising richer capabilities of native app ecosystems. This spawned new costs, harder maintenance, and ultimately poorer experiences that put users off.
The ambition gap
Such shortcuts aren’t always a bad thing of course. Those crude web ports paved the way for progressive web apps (PWAs) and device agnostic technology like Flutter.
So whilst we might be at the same stage for spatial experiences with flat screens from flat panels being somewhat crudely ported into 3D space, this could be the foundation of something new too. What’s different this time, however, is the addition of a new dimension. Not just better technology, but a new actual dimension to place digital assets into.
We think that this lack of truly net-new interaction models is due to a time gap, skill gap, technology maturity gap, and, of course, a financial gap. The return on investment of 3D experiences outside gaming or precision medicine is yet to be proven, and, even in those arenas, the upfront cost is still not insignificant.
All of these inhibitors together fuel an ambition gap. In a world where organisations seek to move quickly with templated experiences, only a few will push the boundary to be the first to try something new. However, the technology cost, skills and time required for these endeavours is enough to flatten this ambition at present.
Taking the first step
To move from the old to new requires creation of not just new interactions but new readily available content that is not designed for the old world, but can thrive in the new. The reason our 3D spaces are littered with flat screens, is because that's the prevailing format in the 2D universe.
At ZeroSixty, we’ve explored how better spatial experiences can add value in gaming, agritech, medicine, sports and entertainment. Our aim is to be ready for the next wave of interactions that utilise new dimensions, new input and control methods, and a better fidelity of technology to actually experience these advances.
We’re at an exciting time where the confluence of XR hardware, new XR development software tools, connected data, and agentic AI offer great opportunities for creating desirable products that can generate real value.
The great news is that for companies looking to explore this new territory, we’ve done the hard work for you, building the skills, experiments, capability and techniques required to design experiences that add return on investment and elevate the end-user experience.
