The Frontiers of Virtual & Augmented Reality User Experience

Presented by: EDWARD MOORE

VR UX Design Specialist

Hosted by:

Welcome to...

Outline

Interaction Design Techniques

Prototyping Tools

Market Overview & Projections

Q&A

UX Definitions & Examples

About Me

~15 Years of UX Design for Videogames

Started VR UX Consulting in August 2014

Show of Hands! Who Owns a VR Device?

Thinking about VR for your business?

Who works (or wants to work) in UX?

Definitions & Examples of VR/AR User Experience

Virtual Reality (VR) vs. Augmented Reality (AR)

VR replaces your reality & creates the sensation of being surrounded in a new environment

AR overlays unreal elements & information to enhance your existing environment

VR = CLOSED

AR = OPEN

What is User Experience (UX)?

What User Experience Is.

Some UX Artifact Examples

Personas

Architecture Flows

Wireframes / Mockups

What is New about VR/AR UX?

• New tech, tools, & usability conventions & issues

• Because of emerging conventions and a fragmented market, interactive prototyping is crucial

• Because VR & AR are partial or complete artificial realities, natural input methods & real-world design thinking comes more into play.

• VR/AR is spherical and organic. Don’t think of flat rectangles!

What UX Practices Stay Relevant for VR/AR?

• Understanding User Personas

• Designing Journey maps to solve user problems

• User Interviewing

• Usability Research

Virtual & Augmented Reality Market Overviews

VR Market Overview

Mobile

Tethered (Console/PC)

Cost, Visual Power, Input Fidelity

Mobile VR Market Overview

• Basic, entry-level VR platform (~$15 USD) that has a lot of awareness and popularity (~20 million units)
• Works with many existing iOS & Android smartphones
• Supports rudimentary VR experiences (Only one button, can’t use hands)

• Mobile VR Market leader (~5 million units)
• $100 USD Headset for Samsung Android smartphones
• Supports a simple touchpad and gamepads, plus new $45 motion controller

• Successor to Google Cardboard
• Uses a simple motion-controller (like Nintendo Wii) for limited selection of Android phones (Pixel)
• $49 - Available now, new AR+VR HMD late 2017

Wired VR Market (Console/PC) Overview

• $400 USD PSVR Kit available now
• Supports Gamepads and “Move” Motion Controllers
• ~1 million units, Playstation 4 users

• Kickstarted modern VR industry, owned by Facebook
• Currently available only for PC
• Uses Gamepads and “Touch” Motion Sensing Controllers
• $600 USD, needs powerful PC to run

• Developed by HTC & Valve
• One Input Standard (Room Sensors and Motion Controllers) to promote consistent UX
• $800 USD, needs powerful PC, & an extra room!
• Provides premium VR UX

Other VR Market Players

Microsoft Win 10 VR

Open Source VR (OSVR)

Star VR

Augmented Reality in the Mobile World

Many Augmented Reality mobile apps exist and are already quite popular with users worldwide.

• Social Media (Snapchat)

• Gaming (Pokemon Go)

• Non-Entertainment Applications (Yelp, Google Translate)

Mobile AR Market Overview

• Google’s Android Smartphone Platform for Mobile AR
• Currently available in the phones from Lenovo, Asus, and Huawei (hybrid Tango-Daydream Phones!)
• $499 USD

• Projects objects and images onto lenses
• Uses depth-sensors to constantly digitize your current environment
• Recognize both voice and simple hand gestures
• $3000 USD Developer Kit - B2B focus

• Detect the environment using sensors and projects images onto lenses
• Uses a smartphone-like device in your pocket to process data.
• Unknown capabilities, release date, or price

VR/AR Market Fragmentation

VR/AR MARKET

VR User Market Data for 2017

1st-hand research of 8-14 year-olds shows high interest in:

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1. Samsung Gear VR
2. Playstation VR
3. Cardboard

Worldwide Google Trends - VR Data

1. Singapore
2. United Arab Emirates
3. Netherlands

. . .

10. USA

• United Kingdom
• Austria
• Germany

. . .

7. USA

• Norway
• Taiwan
• Sweden

. . .

14. USA

• Norway
• Hungary
• Sweden

. . .

8. USA

1. USA

VR/AR Revenue Projections

Current market is small and VR-focused

As tech improves and prices come down, by 2020, combined market may be worth $150 billion USD (mostly AR)

Interaction Design Techniques for VR/AR UX

VR-Specific UX/UI Design Constraints

• VR plugs into user brains on an instinctual level.

• Motion sickness is a genuine concern with VR, but not AR

• New UX/UI Design issues
• Camera motion design
• Framerate & performance
• Visual Density

Combating Motion Sickness

Virtual camera behaviors require special consideration because it can cause motion sickness.

• Don’t interrupt or interfere w. Gaze.

• Any camera motions should be user initiated. Moving or changing the user camera with external forces can be very disruptive.

• Cockpit, helmet, or even nose geometry or other visual grounding elements may stabilize users and promote comfort.

More Camera Design Tips

Use Discrete Camera Rotation

Implement Motion-triggered Dynamic Vignette

New (aka Old) VR / AR UX Design Inspirations

Because VR is an artificial reality, look to your reality for inspiration when crafting new & exciting user experiences.

Head-Fixed (“Newspaper”) vs Diegetic UI

Research suggests head-fixed “newspaper” UI may sometimes (not always) break immersion or cause discomfort.

Users may find exploratory, diegetic (within world) UI elements more immersive & comfortable.

Don’t be a Square!

• Keep High Priority information centered in FOV

• Push secondary information to the periphery (give users reasons to look around)

• Your UI canvas is spherical & organic

Virtual Embodiment

• For VR, design your UX to match the physical state of users (sitting, standing, etc…)

• Think about users’ 6th Sense - Proprioception!

• Prototype VR & AR UI elements to establish standards for virtual interaction distances, font sizes, & typography.

Virtual Embodiment Examples

Examples of Virtual to Physical Input

VR input devices can also permit new, natural ways of prompting users for information, such as height.

• Although VR feels real, the deeper the immersion, the more fragile the illusion.

• Abstracted, stylized visuals & lower visual density still feels “real” but is less “fragile”, promotes user comfort and better performance (extremely important on Mobile)

Visual Density, Stylization, & Immersion

Realistic vs Abstract Visual Design

• Still feels “real” (because of presence)
• Lower density both promotes user comfort and better framerate (important for Mobile VR)
• Less immersive and believable

• Suits projects requiring real-world detail and high immersion
• Works better for high-end PC or console VR
• Maybe be more costly to produce assets

Audio

• Engage all senses!

• Think about replacing visual feedback elements with audio or even dialogue.

• Audio/SFX are useful for “delightful” interaction design and suggesting “versimilitude”

• Most game engines provide “spatial” 3D audio solutions to enhance presence.

The Gamepad VR-UX Issue

• Oculus Rift, Gear VR, and PS VR support gamepads, you can’t see your hands in VR!

• For casual audiences, unseen buttons = bad, easier for “hardcore gamers”

• Consider a “virtual controller” affordance for users to look down at (very popular on PSVR & Daydream)

AR UX Design Tips

• For AR, think of “chunks” or modular interfaces.`

• Use 3D or spatial paper prototypes

• Search for Vuforia and other Unity plug-ins to prototype

VR/AR UX Tools

Can I Use Existing UX Design Tools? Sure, but..

• Many UX tools for web/mobile lend themselves to “flat” or “rectangular” experiences.

• Because of fragmentation...prototyping is crucial

• Doesn’t leverage VR’s true strengths (dimensionality & presence)

VR & AR Development Tools

• More for mobile/2D, independent development, for both VR and non-VR applications
• Accessible, flexible toolset and broad community support
• Supports 27 platforms
• FREE!

• Powerful, designed for high-end rendering and graphically intensive “AAA” PC/console games, previsualization for films, and other non-gaming applications.
• Supports 15 platforms
• FREE!

Spatial Paper Prototyping

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Pros

Permits quick iteration on concepts by creating real-world objects without the need for time-consuming scripting or implementation.

​

Cons

Starts to break down when it becomes tedious or repetitive to simulate functions that computers can better accelerate.

A “Sketchy” VR Prototyping Combo

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More VR Prototyping Tools

Storyboard VR

A-Frame (Web VR)

Sketch To VR

http://sketchapp.rocks/plugins/�sketch-to-vr/

https://www.artefactgroup.com/�work/storyboard-vr/

https://aframe.io/

VR User Research Tools

• Heatmaps are analytics tools for user positions & behaviors

• Currently working in Unity

• Not working in Unreal, (although it has in past versions of the engine).

VR User Research Considerations

• Include Users of Asian descent and Adults for worst-case analysis of potential motion sickness

• Comfort and Motion Sickness = top priorities
• Contextual Inquiry - record users speaking thoughts while in VR.
• Capture Video to see where users are looking in VR

The Future of Natural Input & Interaction Methods

• Human-to-Computer interaction = real-life interactions

• Haptics & finger actuators = virtual sensations.

• Improving Natural Input through Sensors, Voice, AI, and Machine Learning

• Eye-Tracking is coming soon!

Future of the UX Profession in AR/VR

• Try as many VR/AR platforms & experiences to understand the landscape.

• Poorly design VR/AR experiences won’t do well, good UX = strong differentiator.

• Consider the benefits of Freelancing

A Final Bonus Slide for Startups

• Think about Early Adopter User Needs & Emotions vs. Majority Users

• VR & AR are still in early adopter market phases

• Avoid the Chasm with Lean Thinking & User-Centered Design (UCD)

Resources for Further Reading

Thinking about VR/AR UX for your Startup?

UX’ers - Want to Learn VR/AR UX?

Next 8-Week online course - coming soon!

info@uxoffer.com

Contact me for VR-UX Design Consulting

info@amped-ux.com

Want the PDF? Share your Email Address on the sign-in sheet!

Q&A time! @ampedux #sdsw

“Not-So New” Examples of Augmented Reality UX

EyeToy (PS2), PS Eye (PS3), PS4 Camera

Microsoft Kinect (XBox 360, XBox One)

Nintendo 3DS

Consumer-centric AR applications, hardware, experiences and use-cases have existed for many years, including:

UX Artifact Examples

GreyBox - Prototyping VR Within VR

Basic Virtual Reality(VR) Example - 360 Degree Video

Advanced VR Example - HTC Vive Demo

Augmented Reality (AR) Example - Magic Leap