How to design for augmented and virtual reality

What you’ll learn

• How to design for AR and VR from novel and unique perspectives
• The three keys to designing for this new medium: Storytelling, Imagineering, and Improvisation
• How to enhance immersion in order to improve your users’ experience
• How to create 3D personas to improve spatial navigation, layout, and content
• How to incorporate the brain’s responses to 3D interfaces by taking visual, auditory, and kinesthetic interactions into account
• Practical tips to avoid known UX problems when designing for AR and VR.

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are quickly becoming huge areas of technology, with giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google competing to provide the next big AR or VR experience. Statista predicts that the worldwide user base for AR and VR will reach 443 million by 2025, meaning that it is becoming increasingly important for UX designers to know how to create amazing VR and AR experiences. Designing for 3D experiences will require completely new ways of thinking about UX design—and the question is, are you well equipped to tackle this new field of design?

The good news is that while AR and VR hardware and software is changing dramatically, UX principles and techniques for 3D interaction design will remain consistent. It’s just that new opportunities and sensitivities will present themselves to designers and developers. This course will give you the 3D UX skills to remain relevant in the next decade and beyond. You’ll be able to create immersive experiences that tap into the novel opportunities that AR and VR generate. For example, you will need to bring together key UX concepts such as emotional design, social UX, and gamification in order to create an immersive AR or VR creation.

AR and VR need to be easy to use in order to provide users with experiences that wow. Avoiding common usability mistakes and applying the principles of storytelling will help you carefully craft 3D experiences that delight, intrigue, amuse, and most of all evoke the response you intended. You’ll need to engage users in first-person narratives by making use of spatially dynamic UI’s, including gaze, gesture, movement, speech, and sound—often used in combination.

During the course, you will come across many examples and case studies from spatial and holographic interface designers. You will master how to create immersive 3D content for AR and VR that provides rich user experiences. The course offers exercises and challenges throughout, all aimed at helping you and/or your team practice your emerging or existing AR/VR skills. You will be taught by Frank Spillers, who is a distinguished speaker, author, and internationally respected senior usability practitioner with over 15 years of experience in the field.