David W. Sime

Neurodiversities are, by definition, diverse; cognitive and interpretive approaches can vary significantly even from one individual to another. It is therefore extremely important in any digital user interface to allow every user a degree of self customisation/calibration if the experience is to be made accessible to as broad a range of people as possible. However, Augmented Reality has the advantage of working across many senses and contexts - auditory, visual, spatial etc. Each of these can be used to make efficient UI. The spatial element in particular can be leveraged make a simple point and click activation generate a range of meaningful experiences depending on the context of where and at what the system and user is looking.

It's always vital to ask the client and, if the client is not the intended end user, to go straight to those users. Establishing the actual needs and wants of an end-user will almost always highlight unexpected but vital requirements and challenges that will ultimately make the AR system more desirable, useful, enjoyable or easy to use and ultimately more successful.

The field of Augmented Reality is developing at such a rapid pace (& in so many technical, practical & even ethical directions) that it's impossible for even large teams to keep up with every emerging requirement. It is a sign of a strong team & leadership to be able to pinpoint & admit to knowledge or skills gaps & to quickly find, vet & integrate appropriate third party specialists into that team - even if they are from outside of the field of AR (eg. Artificial Intelligence specialists or experienced SMEs from the indistry or use case in which the AR will be employed) In the short term these new skills and perspectives will deliver a better product for the users, in the ling term it will develop your teams capability and understanding.

The hardware you choose can be vital to appropriately applying Augmented Reality in remote worker assistance scenarios. For example, passthrough devices such as the Apple Vision Pro are reliant on cameras sending information to screens, meaning if they fail or run out of power the wearer is rendered blind until they can remove the headset This is unsuitable for high risk environments, tasks where users' hands are busy, driving & essentially most outdoor environments Here "See Through" devices like Hololens (where the digital images are reflected off the back of clear lenses) are much safer as, in the event of failure only the digital layer disappears Also to be considered is the ruggedness, IP and explosive environment rating of the device.

As with any technology development interview, what is most important is the the environment it will be used within, the benefits users seek to gain from using it or the pain points they seek to address. That is the "Where" and the "Why" From this, the "How" and the "What" naturally follow - here we establish how (and whether) AR solves the problem or add the required benefits. We can also establish current or alternative methods by which this is (or isn't) being achieved to create a reasoned argument why Augmented Reality might (or mught not) be a better solution. Only once armed with this knowledge can we begin to build a phased implementation plan establishing the most appropriate hardware, software, connectivity & security solutions.

BIM models can be used as the basis for 3D digital twins of your facility. When populated with accurate information (for example, power, access & ventilation data) or evennorovided with this data in real time from IoT connected sensors, these models can provide an accurate contextual environment to try, test and measure new installations before purchasing or moving a single physical component. For example, it can be ascertained how, where (and whether) a system can fit into the spaces you have available, what level of pre-build or deconstruction might be possible or necessary to get it in place, and whether sufficient power or ventilation is available (or may need to be added) to allow the system to function. This is a huge boon in planning