VR/AR | Experience Dynamics

Accessibility focus: How to design so blind users are not left out of VR

By Frank Spillers

on August 15, 2018 - 2:33pm

Summary: Designing for VR must include users with disabilities. If you are working on AR or VR content, the accessibility of your app or piece should be on your radar from design time through to implementation.

Designing for blind users in VR requires the use of spatial audio using tested 3D sound techniques. At Experience Dynamics we work on a lot of R&D projects that we end up publishing results to the wider UX/ HCI community. One of these projects is a Disability & VR project called SoundSpace.

We include this case study/ demo (VIDEO) included below of how sound can aid navigation, information finding and social VR.

"Less is More" is Key in AR/VR UX

By Frank Spillers

on May 9, 2018 - 9:16am

Summary: UX Design strategies for Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) run the risk of overloading users with too much input: complex menus, unclear or complicated tasks, too much movement etc. For AR/VR UX to be useful and compelling, "less is more" applies for reasons users reveal in user testing.

Disconnects in comfort zones

Developers and designers often want to impress their users with exciting visualizations and manipulations of their physical environment eg. with holograms, moving objects or augmented/virtual spaces to explore. This creates a disconnect between what your bias may be, versus that of your audience.

The problem that many new and returning users to Virtual or Augmented environments seem to experience overwhelm caused possibly by expectations patterned from passive media experiences (television or 2D Desktop/ Mobile).

These 3 skills are required to do good VR/AR UX Design

By Frank Spillers

on February 15, 2018 - 3:48pm

Summary: To design immersive narratives for VR and AR, you must become a strong Storyteller, Improviser and Imagineer.

One of the things we've realized from our VR/ AR design projects over the past few years, is that 3D storytelling is central to the Interaction Design technique and to how users experience immersive (virtual, augmented, mixed) realities. As you approach the user experience of Virtual Reality and mixed reality (we'll refer to that as AR), you need 3 skills under your hat:

Storytelling
Improv
Imagineering

The key is to learn from these traditions in theater, comedy and animation/entertainment and apply them to immersive experiences and VR UX Design. Let's look at each of these in more detail and how they are relevant to 3D Interaction Design.

Webinar: 7 Story-telling Musts for VR/AR

By Admin User

on December 20, 2017 - 3:35pm

News update: We've created a new UX training program for mastering VR/AR UX Design. Over 2018, you will see more webinars announced in our Experience Dynamics' Mastering VR/AR User Experience Design webinar series.

This webinar series is based on two years of intensive VR/AR design and research in addition to Frank Spillers 20 year VR background he has leveraged to create this important new training for the next wave of Immersive User Interfaces.

VR and more- designing immersive user experiences with wow factor

By Admin User

on May 12, 2016 - 5:10pm

Summary: Good user experience design is imperative for smoother adoption of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). The UX focus of wow-factor experiences for VR/AR/MR must include careful attention to design of presence, narrative, engagement and emotion.

Definitions:

Virtual Reality (VR) offers an immersive experience requiring a HMD (Head Mounted Display). The software is powered on a mobile phone or from a new VR-optimized PC. Users feel like they are "there" and the experience is in first person. Note: You have to experience this to realize how profound of a shift it is. First person user experience can change perception in fundamentally profound ways.