Software development has always been the meeting point for technology enthusiasts and process experts who endlessly opine about the best ways to go about it. Paradigms, methodologies and techniques have changed over the years. Whether it is the Kanban system or Aspect Oriented Programming, it all comes down to achieving more efficiency and meeting that often elusive deadline with a robust product.
Augmented reality is already being discussed as a means of improving performance system. The usual example involves a techie looking at the device he or she is going to service. Instead of referring to a manual, the techie’s AR-headset marks the device with key points and step-wise instructions to service it. Augmented reality can also have a powerful impact on the process of software development.
Imagine a typical technical architecture discussion today. Architects draw up diagrams and flows and try to arrive at the perfect solution stack and technical design. If they had AR-headsets with synced displays, their fingers could toss component blocks in and out. The overall system could also highlight the impact of added blocks by lighting up the affected blocks. Metadata about a block could also come in real-time and provide important suggestions. For example, if I throw in a block for denoting a front-end layer written in AngularJS, the system can show a little flag at the corner highlighting its latest versions and the available options for deprecation. If my colleague adds a payment gateway, that block will cause the business logic blocks to shake or be lighted up. The familiar flag can also add a note about considering PSD2 for European markets. Imagine the use of such a system while doing a database design! The AR system can connect dependent tables and highlight normalization issues as well.
The scope for AR-assisted software development is not just limited to technical architecture. Developers can also benefit by using it for the daily SCRUM meetings. These blocks can then be highlighted with the status, the difficulty levels, and the dependencies. It can also span a more rewarding aspect. It has been proved in cognitive science that viewing the rewards of one’s actions can act as a motivator. Imagine if each block added by the developer into completion, lights up screens of the application coming to life. The interactions that are achieved by each successful story completion also show up in live animations viewed by each developer. The developers see the actual fruits of their efforts in real time, instead of waiting for the integration to take place.
AR-assisted software development can become a precursor to other industries taking up AR to craft their deliveries. The experience of software development can thus be made fun and creative and I also daresay, a tad bit addictive!