In February, we saw a huge explosion of activity from Thailand as tens of thousands of people used Layar to view and create interactive print.

Take a look at the chart above, which shows growth in several categories from February. Pageviews had a major spike, growing over 3,000% from January, but what caused so many more people to scan interactive print in Thailand?

It seems a rather popular comedian, Udom Taepanich, was at the center of an interactive print campaign advertising his 10th stand-up special, Deaw 10. Follow this link to check out some footage of one of his previous specials (with English subtitles!). Images on ads around Bangkok and on tickets to the event themselves were augmented using Layar to show a video of Udom coming to life out of the ad.

The campaign has a snowball effect in Thailand, as downloads of the Layar App skyrockets by 515% and thousands of new interactive print campaigns have been published. The shows are still being performed, and more and more people are being made aware of interactive print.

This is a great example of how Layar is, and has been, a very international company. Our users and interactive print Creators come from all over the world from a plethora of use cases, and the growth shown in Thailand recently fits right along that trend. In the end, this shows how interactive print is rapidly expanding across the globe.

Just recently we released our latest iteration, version 5.0, of the Layar Reality Browser. This version introduced a few new features to the browser, including social sharing and 3D animation effects, but also included many improvements to the overall look-and-feel of the app itself, namely, a simpler navigation and a cleaner look.

These changes aren’t pulled from a hat; here at Layar, we conduct surveys and tests with our users in order to create the best experience for them. Chiefly responsible for these tests is our user research lead and interaction (UX) designer Klasien van de Zandschulp, who you may remember from our profile of her last December.

Klasien conducted several user tests prior to the 5.0 launch. Before features were built into a working beta version of the app, clickable PDFs were created for testing using an iPad or an iPhone. While the users in these cases were merely clicking through rough sketches of interface ideas, the information gathered was invaluable to the overall production of the app.

“In user tests, the most important thing is to have the user feel comfortable,” she says. “It’s important not to have the person feel like you are testing their knowledge or skills. You are testing if the design and flow of the app are clear for the end-user.”

The focus of a test is usually about usability issues, like the meaning of an icon, the logic behind the navigation or whether the user is able to find what they want in the least number of steps possible. Other results we collect during the user tests include the user’s mobile device usage habits, their sharing and discovery habits and what they feel is missing from the app.

We have found user testing to be invaluable to the process of developing iterations of the Layar platform and apps. Klasien believes that it’s very important for a UX designer to be involved in the usability test in order to experience how the end-user responds to, and interacts with, the design. Going forward, we plan to conduct more tests in different environments and situations, including outdoor tests.

Participate in a user test
We are always looking for people who want to attend a user test! If you are interested, please send an e-mail to users@layar.com.

Join Layar’s User Panel
Now you can help us create an even better Augmented Reality app! We created the Layar User Panel because we want your opinions and feedback. Participation in the User Panel includes responding to occasional online surveys and being among the first people to test the latest beta version of our Layar app. Fill out our user panel application form to join!

Our intern Anthony(@portemantho) made a nice visualization of one week of Layar usage in the United States. What you see is the parts of the US that have been augmented in the period of 27th of May until 1st of June. Really inspiring stuff Anthony!