#12: Augmented Reality: Not just for gaming
The best outreach and engagement programs use more than words to communicate their messages. Augmented Reality (AR) is a digital technology that can enhance efforts to inform and engage with unique interactive experiences. The tech has become immensely popular among consumers thanks to things like Instagram or Snapchat filters and games like Pokémon Go, but public project campaigns can benefit enormously from it as well. They can bring the abstract vision to life by creating everything from a virtual tour of a future park to superimposing a new bus route on a map accessed from a bus stop picture.
What is Augmented Reality?
AR creates interactive experiences using smartphones and other devices to connect the real world with digital environments and objects. You can see and hear the virtual world through the device, making it seem like they are there in real life within that limited window. These experiences can be as static as a paint color on the wall or can feign responding to light or touch like an actual physical object. They can also be as theoretical as three-dimensional renderings of architectural drawings or bring real-world locations to wherever you are.
Here are a few ways AR tools can enhance public campaigns:
Simulate environments. AR can overlay a location with new or proposed elements and give a virtual tour.
Label reality. AR can annotate and explain things in the real world, translating databases into labels and suggesting actions to take.
Gather public opinion. Those using AR apps can share their opinion and possibly spot errors that need correcting.
How can these trends improve public engagement?
Augment access. AR tools can provide virtual tours of existing or proposed spaces like buildings and parks, providing access to those who can't travel and giving everyone a better sense of what the finished project will look like. Museums, public buildings, and other locations people may visit infrequently can become as immediately accessible as smartphones or computers.
Share public info. An AR app used on a public bus, train, or subway stop could bring up a 3D map of the routes that stop there overlaid onto the road, along with real-time countdowns to the next bus arrivals. It could then be used on the transit vehicle to share the route's progress, on-time arrivals, and proposed changes, keeping ridership informed and involved.
QA testing of concepts. If a new facility is under consideration, an AR app could allow users to try moving around a building's interior, running on a jogging path, or even finding a picnic location in a proposed park. Not only does AR increase the "fun" factor, but it can also help identify potential challenges or concerns that may need to be addressed before project completion.
Augmented Campaigns
Public engagement campaigns can sometimes struggle to infuse their projects, however important, with excitement or a creative spark. AR can be that spark, creating an interactive experience that will attract and engage audiences. Whether used to design a future facility or to share information about one already standing, digital images and sounds can be an effective way to reach a larger audience and give them a tangible connection to a public engagement campaign, offering unique opportunities to be part of the civic planning projects that shape the world around us.
Interested in seeing these trends in your outreach? Give us a call today.
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