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Studio IV: Contextual Statement
The augmentation of technology into physical media is a concept
that has already
been achieved multiple times. How long, however, until new
technology is used to
augment the old digitally? Stepping on the ship of those
pioneering the concept, I
saw the static pages that many people use every day for online
shopping and chose
that angle as a place to experiment with the concept of digital
augmentation. The
purpose of this research was to examine how an audience
interacts with an
animated/simulated environment over a static one and to gauge
their reaction and
engagement to each environment in order to increase audience
interest in the
subject matter.
Simulation is a technique (not a technology) to replace and
amplify real
experiences with guided ones, often immersive in nature, that
evoke or replicate
substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive
fashion.(2010, Lateef)
The trend of current and future technologies are moving towards
moving images
and simulations as a way to convey ideas and to make testing and
surveying
products easier.
One of the ways the old static environment is being replaced is
with the fairly new
concept of simulated environments. Simulated enviroments provide
audience
interaction in a way completely unique to itself. Allowing a
user to enter, interact
with and change a virtual environment to their liking will open
up an entirely new
angle on digital experiences. There is a lot of potential using
simulated
environments; complicated concepts could be expressed easily
with visual
expression and user interaction. Some concepts are already being
explored
Computer simulated experiments have gained increasing attention
from
marketing researchers interested in studying dynamic buying
behaviour.
(Campo, Gijsbrechts, Guerra, 1998).
"For the past thirty years, people have predicted that
technology will transform
the shopping experience," Burke says. "And for thirty years, we
have been
disappointed. The limitations of personal computers and
communication
technologies made shopping at home harder than shopping in the
physical store--the systems were too slow, too unreliable, and too
hard to use. Now the
technology has evolved to the point where it can deliver
significant benefits to
consumers." (Englert, 2012). The concept of a simulated shopping
center isnt
that new, but I couldnt find a singleactual implementation into
a real store
online. A very similar concept was a virtual demo created by
company Keytree
(Prigg, 2012) using motion sensors in order to reproduce the
shopping
experience without leaving the house. This is an interesting
idea, but it did not
come into fruition because (in my opinion) it was trying to run
before it could
walk; meaning first a successful virtual simulation has to be
created and
maintained before elements such as motion sensors and
virtual-reality helmets
can be implemented.
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The simulation I ended up with was made using a Unity engine,
which is an
easily accessible platform that acceptably shows the concept of
a simulated
shopping environment. It is designed to engage the user and
interact with them
while they shop. The main goal was to alleviate the frustration
that often couples
shopping, both online and physical. The simulated environment is
easier to
interact with for those who are not technically savvy and is
also a more
informative way to purchase products. One of the benefits a user
can get with the
simulation is a large amount of information is available
instantaneously to them.
They can see dietary information, product reviews, and accurate
descriptions of
the product without having to hunt the information down.
I designed the simulation to be completely different from a
typical store. It
contains essential products and displays, but instead of being
confined a large
building the user is outside in a field. The idea is to make the
simulation less
restrictive than its physical counterpart, if the user feels
better when using the
simulation than the mundane static format. There are only two
different scenes at
this point in the simulation, each designed and lit in a way
that enforces a
relaxed feeling to the simulation. I considered having music
playing as well, but I
decided that would have been too distracting when people are
trying to consider
purchases.
While I do have a working prototype, it is nowhere near
completed. It has the
foundation, but there are many possibilities for augmentation.
The room for
exploration and expansion with the concept of simulated
technologies is great, I
have little doubt about the future expansion of simulations for
many different
areas.
Matteo Giommarelli
