The way we AR

At Learning Technologies in London last week I expressed my view that Augmented Reality (AR) has more direct applications in workplace learning than Virtual Reality (VR). This is based on a number of factors. The first is that AR can be used through existing personal technologies, such as smartphones and tablets. Several apps are freely downloadable, including Aurasma, Layar and Blippar, each of which is capable of being used instantly to discover information about the world around us. AR views the world through the camera on your device and overlays additional information on the live images it presents on the screen. Another factor is that AR is a little easier to use than VR, taking less time to set up. Yes, VR visors are now common place and cheap to purchase from most online stores, and they also function using personal technologies. However, this additional cost, although not prohibitive on a small scale, could be a problem if a large organisation had to purchase them for every employee.

One compelling reason AR has the potential to be more successful than VR in the workplace however, is that the latter suffers from a similar stigma to Google Glass. Let's be honest here - wearing technology on your face looks strange, and most people would avoid using it if it made them feel stupid. Google Glass failed for a number of reasons, one of which was its geeky appearance. Holding a smartphone doesn't look nearly as out of place as wearing a visor.

Finally, probably the best reason VR tools will not be as successful in workplace learning as AR, is that while you are wearing a visor, your safety is less assured. With your vision obscured, and with images being rendered solely by a computer, there is inherent danger. With a smartphone as your window on richer information about the world around you, you are able to disengage instantly and are able to gauge any threat to your safety fairly quickly. There have been reports of people falling into danger while using the AR app for Pokemon Go, but these would be nothing compared to the chaos caused by widespread use of VR visors in public places. As Paul Travers (CEO of Vuzix) argues, there is a limit to what you can achieve when you are isolated from the real world inside a visor.

But ultimately, we don't know what the future holds for technology development. It will probably pan out in ways that mean the distinction between AR and VR, as Heather Kelley (Kokoromi) suggests, will become 'legacy terms' for a bygone age.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons


The way we AR by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.