DESIGN FICTION
The Maya Lenz
How will advanced mixed reality impact our everyday lives?
The subject
How will advanced mixed-reality impact our daily lives?
How will we use it?
What if we can’t tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t?
Signals
Timeframe
The speculated future
In 2040, mobile smartphones are obsolete.
The main personal device is mixed reality eye-wear, with in-eye lenses the most common, and glasses for those who can’t afford the lenses.
The Design Fiction Concept
What if every day you could see and interact with a version of the world you preferred— a unique view personalised for you according to what makes you happy—all with a few blinks and eye movements?
If you could, would you apply Facebook and Snapchat filters to your sight? If the overcast day brought down your mood, would you choose a sunny day filter? What about the rows of buildings outside your bedroom window — would you prefer to wake up to the sparkling view of a giant waterfall? And the endless concrete covering the city, would you prefer it covered in lush green?
The Maya Lenz is a blink-controlled, augmented reality contact lens concept that immerses users in a persistent, uber-personalised view of the world with 100% field of vision, 24 hrs a day.
Medium
Values*
*Future Scouting aims to champion values during futuring to ensure we are always fostering our preferred futures.
Speculated features
Installed via nano-technology
The advanced contact lens is administered via eye drops containing bio-compatible nano-materials that ‘colonise’ the Lenz on the eye.
A potential 4th Extended Reality called AltR (Alternate Reality) created when MR tech is so advanced wearers see completely different augmentations of the same reality and yet are able to interact with each other as the different augmentations follow the same spatial dimensions and physics.
Blink-controlled interaction (usability principles ↗)
Personalised, predictive filtering
As well as standard filters and default displays, such as weather and directional information, the Lenz’s key feature is the Mirage—an automated, personalised filter that alters the user’s view to show them more of what they want to see and less of what they don’t.
Speculated implications of advanced MR
Potential for uber-filtering of reality resulting in the exclusion of others and enabling denial
Potential for wearers’ enhanced alignment with values
Potential for a deeper connection with each other
Potential for a deeper connection with nature
The Design Fiction Protoypes
1. Future Web Page
A promotional product web page design exploring the product and service design evolved an ecosystem of products and services:
- ‘Virtual Optometrist” goggles so users could have their eyes tested remotely
- ‘Vision Bars’ like Apple’s genius Bars
- Eye care supplements
2. Design Guide
Blink-controlled technology would afford a new way to interact.
And this would require new design principles for hands- and voice-free, eye-controlled interaction.
3. Prototype
Without AR design skills, I created a click-based prototype and viewed it on a large TV screen, sitting close to simulate an AR lens view, and blinking as I clicked to simulate blink-interaction.
Below is an interactive prototype to visualise how filters might work.
Other work
“The Lenz”
A Novel
“How could we control augmented reality with only our eyes—a speculative design”
An article
“Will augmented reality show us a better future or blind us to it?—A speculative vision”
An article