General considerations
In the design process of narrative AAR experiences, a number of considerations can be taken into account, such as:
- Overall design. What is the experience's relationship to the real environment and reality? Some examples:
- Azuma’s three approaches to AR storytelling:
- Reinforcing (selecting an environment that is compelling itself)
- Reskinning (remaking reality to suit the story)
- Remembering (retelling memories at their places)1)
- Experience based on map vs. reacting to surrounding cues and objects2)
- Experience transferable to multiple locations instead of being tied to a specific location
- How to compromise between 1) narrative engagement and interaction and 2) suspension of disbelief through compelling acoustic virtual reality?3)
- How much the user should be guided during the experience ('holding hand')?
- How to maintain intelligibility in noisy environments4) or cope with unpredictable sounds?
- Should the sounds be distinguishable from the real-world sounds5) or seamlessly blend with the reality?
- How can sound be utilised as providing time for static surroundings?6)
- Real acoustics vs. unreal acoustics
- Role of speech vs. sound effects
1)
Azuma, Ronald. Location-Based Mixed and Augmented Reality Storytelling, 2nd Edition of Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality, edited by Barfield Woodword, 259–76, CRC Press, 2015
2)
Rodkin, Richard, and Dafna Naphtali. Audio Augmented Reality for Interactive Soundwalks, Sound Art and Music Delivery, Foundations in Sound Design for Interactive Media, Routledge, 2019
3)
Cliffe, Laurence. Audio Augmented Objects and the Audio Augmented Reality Experience, Thesis (University of Nottingham), University of Nottingham, 2022 https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/69795/
4)
Schütze, Stephan, and Anna Irwin-Schütze. New Realities in Audio: A Practical Guide for VR, AR, MR and 360 Video, CRC Press, 2018 https://www.routledge.com/New-Realities-in-Audio-A-Practical-Guide-for-VR-AR-MR-and-360-Video/Schutze-Irwin-Schutze/p/book/9781138740815
5)
Dam, Abhraneil, Arsh Siddiqui, Charles Leclerq, and Myounghoon Jeon. Extracting a Definition and Taxonomy for Audio Augmented Reality (AAR) Using Grounded Theory, Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 66, no. 1 (2022): 1220–24 https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181322661434
6)
Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, Second Edition, Columbia University Press, 2019