Mixed Reality

Designing Information Spaces for Augmented Reality

Immersive technology allows creators to engage users in new and novel ways, many of which can make the interactions users have with information easier or more meaningful. This project will look at a four different storytelling formats that exist today (a cooking blog, a sports broadcast, a web interactive and a podcast) and reimagine them for augmented reality using tools like Torch for iOS and Magic Leap’s Create tool.

Faculty and Staff Leads

Zach Wise

Associate Professor

Emmy winning interactive producer & Associate Professor @NorthwesternU, @KnightLab. Formerly of The New York Times. Creator of TimelineJS & StoryMapJS

Rebecca Poulson

Engineer

Rebecca leads AR/VR projects at Knight Lab. In addition to being a software developer and playwright, Rebecca is an Oculus Launchpad Fellow and Mozilla Tech Speaker. She has taught WebVR workshops on three continents.

Project Details

2019 Winter

Important Questions

  • Spatial relationships strengthen our ability to encode and consolidate memories, how might we leverage that to help users understand complex stories?
  • What role can audio play in guiding users through AR experiences?
  • What are the key differences in designing information spaces for mobile AR vs a headmounted display?

Sample Milestones

  • Week 1-2 Building familiarity with tools and designing and example of a Timeline JS timeline in AR
  • Week 3-4 New York Times’ “Cooking” newsletter
  • Week 5-6 Olympic Curling broadcast
  • Week 6-7 WBEZ’s “What’s That Building?”
  • Week 8 Final Presentation

Outcome

Students will build a prototypes of a variety of information spaces using tools like Torch and Magic Leap Create. The final output will be a website that includes prototype demos and summarizes lessons learned, key takeaways and hypotheses for future investigation (similar to Uncharted Territory: Diving in to Data Visualization in Virtual Reality)

Links