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Have you heard of UX? Let’s make it easier, forget the acronym and call it by its real name: user experience, which is basically the way you interact with a product, software application, website, process, or service.
We recently wrote about paid user experience testing, and we also listed the digital products you are more likely to test at the moment. But, what about the future? Have you thought about the new amazing products you are likely to test in a few years?
People for Research recently visited CAMERA – The Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications, in Bath. Besides being able to experience virtual reality at their facility, we also learned that the world of paid testing is likely to change in the next few years. These are the seven tech and digital products you could test in a not-so-distant future.
You can believe us when we say that virtual reality is immersive. The technology is already quite good, so one can only expect even higher quality within the next few years. While only a small group of people have had access to a VR headset so far, this is likely to change in the near future. More and more manufacturers and investors are interested in virtual reality and truly believe it to be the next big thing in entertainment and communications.
VR is expected to explode in the next five years or so, but there is still a lot of work to do and problems to solve, besides the hefty price of the headsets and controllers. Some of the problems are the technology’s tendency to induce motion sickness and the lack of convincing sound to go with the visual experience. Both the headsets and controllers, plus the new technology created to go with it, will need some serious testing.
People for Research is used to recruiting people to take part in paid game testing in the UK, but we haven’t had the chance to recruit users to test virtual reality games. The investment in content for VR hardware has been a bit slow, mostly because the technology is still being developed.
Still, some companies have been working in digital content for VR headsets. The only one we have experienced so far in person was a ‘man vs elements’ game called “Storm: A Survival Experience for Oculus Rift”, a demo developed by London-based Unit 9. With names like PlayStation investing in VR and content, it seems more and more likely that we will soon be testing virtual reality games.
One of the really interesting things CAMERA and other organisations are working on are VR training programmes, mostly for professionals, athletes and disabled people. By providing accurate and realistic simulations, VR will be able to help pilots, doctors or even bomb disposal specialists – just to name a few – train their abilities in a controlled and safe environment.
Again, this technology will require extensive testing not just by the professionals it is being built for, but maybe also basic testing carried out by non-professionals to make sure the whole package is user-friendly and easy to use by anyone.
Remember Google Glass? It’s probably one of the earliest examples of augmented reality headsets to explode in the real world. The enthusiasm around the gadget died a little bit after a period of euphoria when Google sent the Glass to a few users to be tested.
Well, forget about that: some experts say that, in a not-so-distant future, we are likely to be immersed in augmented reality at all times. Of course, before that happens, lots of testing will take place!
Sounds futuristic! Holographic TV may become a reality by or after 2020, but it is only likely to become a reality depending on the further development of augmented reality technology. Can you imagine watching Game of Thrones and having a dragon flying around the living room? Scary…
Smartwatches are probably the most well-known example coming from the world of wearable devices, and People for Research have been looking for people to test these for a while, so no surprise here. But what are the wearable devices of the future? Well, we have heard about rings, temporary tattoos, shoes and futuristic gloves… but what about nails? A designer recently announced she had created fake nails embedded with microchips that work as an Oyster card, so expect the unexpected.
Dreaming of a connected house full of battery-free gadgets that you can control from your smartphone? Maybe not at the moment, but this is definitely where technology is headed. The University of Washington recently developed a technology that enables gadgets to work and communicate exclusively using energy harvested from nearby TV, radio, mobile phone and Wi-Fi signals (it’s called backscattering!). Say goodbye to charging and batteries!
CAMERA Bath is an applied research centre based in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath. They specialise in collaborative, applied research with industry and academia in motion capture, visual effects, virtual and augmented reality, and more.
We don’t have testing about VR or holographic TVs yet, but would you like to become our friend anyway? Follow this link to quickly join our community.