My First Week as a MR/VR Interaction Designer
My first week at Finger Food Studios (FF) flew by ever so quickly. I was blown away by a very well-thought onboarding process (thanks Simon!), and I am super excited to tackle impactful problems for world-class clients.
I joined the FF design team because it was time for a change. Designing for 2D platforms was getting stale and my personal satisfaction of it was minimal. I decided to take the leap of faith to join a truly innovative team with ambitious goals. The Microsoft Hololens is a completely new realm and skillset for me that I now have to design for and with. Some principles and processes of 2D design that were used on designing posters and app interfaces have either been significantly altered or thrown out the window. It’s time to learn how to design again.
Having said that, I thought it would be helpful to write a short article for those who are looking to take their talents into the VR space. There were a few learnings in my first week:
- There is no such thing as too many interactions
People are purposefully wearing the Hololens to experience something they cannot in real life—don’t hide those opportunities. If people can interact with a television in the virtual environment, make it clear that you can do so. In virtual reality, obvious interactions always win.
2. Storyboarding is key
I haven’t done this much storyboarding in the past three years as I have in the past week. Since virtual reality spans much more than just a 2D surface, it opens up a plethora of design thinking variables: physical space and perspectives, visual immersion, interaction flows, and viewer/presenter roles (which I’ll talk about below). As mentioned, there are definitely new considerations thrown into the equation for virtual reality.
3. There’s more than one perspective
On many occasions, the Hololens is used as a tool to communicate a visual concept to an internal team or stakeholders, usually before expensive physical prototyping. There is a Presenter role and a Viewer role; Presenters drive and lead the presentation of the vision, and the Viewers stare at holograms with their chins to the ground.
How might the experience for the Presenter change to that of a Viewer? On the Presenter’s end, is the presentation flow logical? Are the tools we designed helping them sell the product? From a Viewer’s perspective, are the visualizations of ideas comprehensive and enticing enough? Is the Hololens experience enhancing the Presenter’s sales pitch?
That’s about it as I want to keep this short and sweet. Stay tuned as we roll out more incredible products.
