LO fills a niche in the AR glasses market that no other set could compare to- LO was a collaboration between 5 designers that wanted to make AR glasses look and feel cool and engaging to use while also serving a genuine purpose.
As time passes, our technology advances. However, our ability to maintain attention stays the same. The human mind has a limited resource of attention, and our current technology enables distraction.
LO AR Glasses offer the functionality of a smartphone with none of the distraction. By removing the physical barrier created by the phone screen, LO users are able to interact seamlessly with the world around them.
When users enter Work mode, LO facilitates an environment that helps users enter a state of ‘Flow’. Flow is a state of mind in which a person is entirely focused on the task at hand. LO enables flow by handing users the tools they need to complete their tasks while minimizing any distractions that may occur.
LO was my first experience working as a Team Lead, and along with it came some of the hardest and yet most valuable lessons. Putting together a project timeline that was ambitious yet achievable while also being respectful of my co-workers time was a balancing act in and of itself.
LO was a project created for class by 5 designers in 10 weeks. Our only prompt was “Wearables”, and our limitations were our time frame and that our designs could only be made with technology that would be widely available within the next 5 years.
LO started with the idea that in an ever-increasingly digital world, people were getting distracted more. We wanted to find a way to drop the digital barrier between our users and the world around them, while still accessing the functionality of technology.
This was our initial schedule. What you might notice missing here is our second, third, and fourth round of Primary Research that happened concurrently with the rest of the work. This was an intensive, all hands on deck project that our team members were very enthusiastic about. Instead of pushing them, on many occasions I had to remind them to slow down to avoid burnout, yet their passion made this such a stellar project that I can’t help but be grateful.
We started wide and wild, then we reigned our ideas in.
In a week and a half, we had to have 3-5 ideas for wearables to pitch, and they each needed separate problem statements and functions. Before we went refined, we started with the mindset that no idea was too wild or wacky to at least think about.
Out of our wide range of topics and several whiteboards of ideation, we pitched our concepts to our peers, and everyone was in agreement that our AR glasses were our strongest concept.
Competitive Analysis
The following charts compare the most popular and the most advanced AR headsets at the time of our project, as well as comparing voice assistants.
For the first two charts, the competition is categorized in columns, and the metrics we are judging them by are to the left of the chart. Each color represents how well they scored relative to each other with green being good, yellow being passable, and red as a failed score. We also included the reasoning behind each score to show why we believed they succeeded or failed.
A large portion of the glasses failed at the categories of field of vision, user functionality, style, social impact, and price. In our research, we found a commonality why AR glasses have not been as popular as expected - they simply do not deliver on style the way the do in functionality.
LO puts the control in your hands
The last thing we wanted was to design a great product that people had no idea how to use, or never wanted to use because it was too hard .Our research showed that voice assistants and gesture controls were less likely to be used in public, but that touch bars were too clunky and unwieldy to use all the time. That’s why we designed LO to be able to use all three.
Any control modality can be disabled or enabled easily, and each has their own purpose. When users are completing hands on tasks or are otherwise occupied, they can call out to LO and do anything they normally could. The touch bar is for discreet public use, allowing users to get things done without calling attention to themselves. Gesture control allows the most direct control, and is what users asked us to emphasize during our hands on mock up testing. Each gesture is unique from the others to avoid confusion, but there are few enough that they are easy to remember.
LO’s design combats the public’s negative mental model of AR Glassware
Whether that be through an improved design that could more easily pass as streetwear than other high tech glasses or the multimodality that was designed into the frames themselves, LO meant business by looking chic and casual.
As well, research proved to us that privacy concerns ranked high on consumers minds, so the build in camera only comes out of its housing when in use, and conveniently stores away for ensured peace of mind.
Expert Interviews, Survey, Cultural Probe
During our development cycle, continued our research onwards. We interviewed multiple industry professionals, including CEO’s of AR companies, UX designers currently working on AR glasses, Psychology professors, and US Air Force members who routinely used heads up displays. We gained many insights from them, including ways to engage users without distracting them, whether or not to include gamification in our design and how to do so responsibly, and many more insights disclosed in the full process book found at the end of the page.
However, one of the most important insights that we gained was that AR glasses don’t just need functionality, they need something exclusive. It’s not good enough to develop glasses that change the way users interact with technology, they need to be able to do something nothing else can match.
This is where our idea for AR Pin Drop comes in. Through surveys and cultural probes, users asked for a way to not only interact with technology and their work a new way, but also the world around them. This pin drop functionality connects users by allowing them to share photos, videos or reviews tied to geographic locations, and are only accessible to those using LO.
LO helps you disconnect from a purely digital world
By offering the functionality and amenities of a phone while limiting distraction based on the environment you’re in, users of LO find themselves more engaged in the world around them, sometimes in ways they never imagined they could be using our unique AR geotagging system.
With two discreet modes, LO is your companion for both work and play.
Equipped with bone conductive headphones as well as gaming functionality, LO is a lot of fun to use. When play time is over, LO helps you get serious by eliminating push notifications and setting timers to help you work your hardest. Paired with limited functionality in work mode that emphasizes work related tasks including conference calling, LO helps you enter into a state of ‘flow’ that maximizes productivity and minimizes distraction.