Using the Even G1 Smart Glasses During an Approximately Two-Hour Talk
"The Return of Web Design Trends," where I spoke in Osaka on July 12, was planned as an approximately 120-minute talk including a 10-minute break. In reality it was slightly shorter, but it was still a long talk. When a talk is this long, remembering everything from the start is extremely difficult, and some kind of strategy becomes necessary.
This talk was one session within "The 45th ReCri Seminar: The Return of Web Design Trends & A11y Osaka Meetup."
"Web Design Trends," now in its 16th year, often becomes long because it covers a broad range, so there have been various techniques for handling that. For example, in the past I printed out a cheat sheet with necessary information and proceeded while checking it during the talk. That method had reached a state that could be called complete in its own way.
However, this method often requires looking down to read small text, and especially in recent years, with my eyesight declining, it had become fairly difficult. The "Web Design Trends" session often shows captures on the screen, and it is not the kind of session where everything to say is built into the slides. For that reason, writing all the notes into the slides is difficult.
I also do not use a style where notes are written in presenter view. I think this is the result of presentation training I received in the past, but basically all my presentations are done with mirrored displays.
In that situation, I bought the Even G1 a little while ago.
Even G1 has a feature that displays notes on the smart glasses, and it also has a teleprompter feature. A teleprompter is a device used in political speeches and similar situations, letting speakers look at cue cards while keeping their eyes toward the camera. It is a reassuring ally for people who sometimes lose track of what to say.
Since I had the opportunity, I decided to make full use of those features. People who noticed during this talk may have noticed, but I wore the Even G1 smart glasses while speaking. There probably are not many people who have tried Even G1 in a talk of this scale.
Which Feature Is Suitable for a Long Talk?
The main use case was displaying information used during the session, but the clock shown on the left is actually important too. Being able to check the time without looking at a watch in my hand is extremely helpful. First, I needed to consider whether to use notes or the teleprompter.
The good thing about notes is that you can prepare several notes and switch to the next one by tapping the tap area near your ear. At first I was fully planning to use notes, but when I tried to put in notes for an almost two-hour talk, a problem occurred.
You can create a large number of notes, but the stock that can be switched by tapping is limited to a maximum of four. In other words, you can only switch among four notes. For a two-hour talk, that is far from enough. Conversely, for something like an LT, I thought notes would probably work.
The teleprompter is a little tricky. There is a mode where text scrolls automatically, and a mode where you manually scroll the smartphone screen to control the display position. Considering the progress of a talk, automatic scrolling seemed difficult, so I chose the manual switching method. There is also a style where you scroll by flicking the temple of the glasses, but when I simulated it, misoperations seemed likely, so I decided it could not be used in the actual talk.
Incidentally, the maximum Japanese text that can be displayed without scrolling is below.
あいうえおかきくけこさしすせそたちつてとなにぬねのはひふへほまみむめもやゆよらりるれろわをんあいうえおかきくけこさしすせそたちつてとなにぬねのはひふへほまみむUsing this amount as a baseline and controlling the displayed information from my hand, I was able to display information on the smart glasses without problems. This should have been fine.
The Actual Performance Differs from Assumptions
I think live presentations are unpredictable. If you do live coding, accidents happen. If you demo a tool, the PC freezes. When introducing a new device like this, unknown issues can very much occur.
During "Web Design Trends," there is already no spare capacity. Three people present, but we also handle facilitation, so we need to proceed while simultaneously explaining, preparing the next slide, controlling what to say, and managing speed. This time, controlling the device through a smartphone was added on top of that.
It is true that I became able to check information while looking forward. However, reading text displayed on smart glasses in front of my eyes while also looking at the MacBook screen as a return monitor, the actual projected screen, and the faces of other speakers, all at different focal distances, was quite difficult.
Also, slide control and smart glasses control each progressed separately, so ideally they would be synchronized, but things did not go that smoothly. There was repeated confusion on site, and I broke out in a cold sweat.
Still, I Felt the Potential of Smart Glasses
After finishing, I do feel that if slide and display information synchronization, as well as better organization of the displayed information, could be handled more skillfully, this would definitely become a powerful ally for presentations. It was an experience that made me want to build a small app myself. If the Even G1 app gets updated and becomes really good, that would also be fine, but for now it does not seem to be updated very frequently.
There are many challenges, but I think smart glasses were an attempt where I could see a promising approach that stays close to reality.