5 Ingredients for Immersive Storytelling with Technology and Space
By: Marina Razakhatskaya
Tags: Phygital, Creative Technology, Creative Technologist, Immersive Storytelling, Experiential Marketing

While designing technology-inspired and technology-enabled immersive experiences at The Dock, I’ve identified five key components that are critical for building interactive experiences in a physical space. These components form a framework that facilitates the design process and can be applied to any space, audience, and theme.

1. Installations

Installations have the power to transform a desert into the largest open-air art gallery in the world during Burning Man festival. In physical space, installations are the highlights of your story, the milestones of user journey.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — Rock Paper Scissors— — — — — — — — — — — — [interactive installation that demonstrates pattern recognition aspect of AI]

— — — — — — — — — — — — —Service of Happiness — — — — — — — — — — —— [interactive installation that responds to human emotions and demonstrates computer vision technology]

Interactive art installations are powerful tools to communicate a complex concept in a fun and engaging way. They serve as opportunities to demonstrate a new technology or product or service in a metaphorical way and inspire thinking of real-life use cases. This is why installations are now being taken out of art galleries and find their new niche in retail and work spaces, in brand activations, and in centres for corporate innovation.

Installations replace slide decks and use means of indirect metaphorical communication where the message is hidden and needs to be unwrapped as a gift. On a human level, installations trigger the excitement of discovery and make users work/engage more to get the message. And when we put effort into something, we tend to value it a bit more than a given.

To get some inspiration of how interactive installations might look and feel like, check CreativeApplications.net.

2. Intuitive Navigation

The paradigm of design navigation for 2D digital products is well defined. We have UI components, clicks, scrolls, taps and swipes.

When designing for a physical space, we need to consider a custom 3D environment where navigation can barely be standardized. In a physical space, the design of navigation system depends on a large number of variables:

size of the space

time of an experience

whether it’s a guided or self-discovery experience

whether the journey is linear or can be experienced in random order

whether it’s an individual or group experience

Navigation systems are crucial in enabling users to experience an interactive physical space the way it was designed to be experienced. It can be designed using one or a combination of the following tools:

signage system (think road signs, emojis, etc. as an example)

floor markup (stickers, carpets)

light systems (interactive lights switching on and off in a dark room guiding users through the journey)

audio system (navigation guidance enabled by audio recordings or sound manipulations)

human guide (think museum guide, workshop facilitator, actor)

gamification (treasure-hunt game principles to move users from point A to point B)

and focal points (intuitive navigation enabled by scenery design).

Maybe we can even learn from designing for VR and apply these learnings to designing for physical space?

3. Immersion

Immersion is about creating a feeling of being somewhere else, in a certain environment or in a certain context.

The word ‘immersive’ has gotten a strong association with VR and AR these days. But it’s much broader than that.

Immersion can be created using a wide range of technologies — or no technology at all. In Black Box Bellagio Data Casino, for example, immersion is created by casino metaphor in space and experience design only. Another example has been found in our “The Future Home” research, which is focused on a human-first approach in designing a smart home. For some of our respondents, being surrounded by personal items such as blankets and candles evoked a sense of safety more than security cameras.

Immersive design is based on triggering patterns in associative memory that can be achieved through sensorial perception. Here we work with senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and even sense of temperature. Accordingly, immersion is usually created with set/visual design, light and darkness, projections and projection mapping. It also involves sound and haptic feedback design elements to give users a reference to a specific environments.

4. Interactions

Apart from touch screens, which can be an equal part of an experience in a physical space, the variety of possible interactions with the space is much broader. Input can be taken from:

full0body movement

gesture tracking

eye tracking

computer vision

voice

touch (see below)

and any source of data that can be captured by sensors.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Wishing Tree — — — — — — — — — — — — — — [interactive touch-audio interface designed to present research insights in The Dock]

Touch gains even more importance, because with Internet of Things and capacitive sensors, we can make pretty much every physical object today responsive to touch. Think banana piano or Wishing tree as simple examples.

Feedback systems can also consist of multiple elements such as 3D projections, interactive data visualization, mechanical and haptic response, sound and even artificial smoke. The potential forcreativity is endless.

5. Souvenir

Of course, if you take someone on a journey with you, you want to make sure they are rewarded and come home with a takeaway.

Immersive experience is limited by time and space, and once your audience leaves the room, they start forgetting. This is why a souvenir is a key component of any experience. In this case, it’s not swag — it’s an object to contain the memory of the experience.

What makes a strong takeaway? Think personalization, customization, and emotional connection.

We normally use 3D printers, labels printers and laser cutters to create something unique — ideally in real time in front of theuser. The way it’s presented can be an emotional moment too. Maybe your guest is approached by a mini robot who opens its heart to them, and there is a little gift? Or maybe you ask your guest to sign a letter of intent, saying they’re going to use their data responsibly?

Whether you use technology or pen and paper, there are numerous ways to make a souvenir special.