INTRO
TL;DR - XR Presentation is an exploration of how to give a presentation in passthrough VR and 5-10 users co-presence scenario.
Mirage Solo is one of the first standalone headsets that has 6 degree of freedom on the head-tracking. During my internship, "Nova" was under development so I have a chance to implement it in XR Presentation.
Before I started this project, I made a UX report on the design and experience of Vega. During this project, a collection of XR interactions was documented along the way to help me learning and designing with this emerging technology.
The 6DoF dev kit and the see-through feature were later announced in September 2018. You can apply the 6 DoF Dev Kits here if you are in the United States.
DESIGN CHALLENGES
CONCEPTUALIZING & PLANNING
PROBLEMS & LIMITATIONS
A successful presentation is like a good "handshake".
User Roles
Presenter
Verbal Explanation
Providing Supporting Materials
Audience
Watching + Listening
"Imaginations"
No matter what kind of idea is presenting, the presenter today can only use 2D media as supporting materials (Text, Image, Video). In some user case, 2D media is too abstract from the actual object that the presenter introduces.
Presenters from certain industries such as architects do use physical prototypes as supporting materials. However, physical materials are difficult to be manufactured, carried, and shared.
RESEARCH
3 critical user journeys (CUJ) were created to support this project. They were based on professional use case including sneaker designer, architect, and art history professor. CUJs were made based on studies on current presentations videos, presentation decks and interviews with people from these areas.
Structure of a Traditional Presentation
Context
Concept & Plan
Details, Solutions, Final Deliveries
Semantic information, introduction, background knowledge
Problems, possible solutions, prototypes, iterations
Final products, high fidelity prototypes, demos, details
Pain Points
“Narrative”
Every shoe has a story or core technology integrated in the design. Highlights and details are transferred into the final design of the sneaker. Sneaker usually brings a copy of physical prototype to discuss in a presentation.
“Sense of Scale”
Architects are worried about losing the sense of scale since they spend so much time on part of their model. Having basic primitive polygons to build in a presentation and viewing the model in 1:1 ratio in VR can help them keep this sense.
“Sense of Scale”
Architects are worried about losing the sense of scale since they spend so much time on part of their model. Having basic primitive polygons to build in a presentation and viewing the model in 1:1 ratio in VR can help them keep this sense.
“Expansibility”
A presentation in a art history class is not just about theatrical effect of the presenter, but it also should be capable to contain all the information so both the professor and students can review it after class.
DESIGN & PROTOTYPE
User Flow Diagram Ver.1
The first version structure was designed for 3DoF interfaces. The users were interacting with a virtual screen in certain distance away from them. 3DoF interface didn't use the space and flexibility in XR very well. A lot of frequently used function was hidden in a few hierarchies just like a 2D app.
User Flow Diagram Ver.2
In the second version of structure, the development of Nova controller was almost done so I had a chance to introduce volumetric control to this project. Thanks to volumetric interactions, users now can call out and access a home page right from their hand.
Home
Ver 2 has...
Define the co-presence logic in XR
“Co-Presence by Default”
Users enter the same shared space as soon as they put on the headset.
Quick, efficient, less barriers.
Allowed multiple decks be shown at the same time.
2 Laws of Co-Presence
We don’t define the role of the user, but the visibility of the content.
We don’t define what contents are visible to all, but what are private to the owner.
Public
Everything that is parented with the world from the interface should be visible to other nearby users.
Any content in the current slide.
Private
Everything that is parented with the user should only be visible to the himself.
Lasers, XRP Home, Eagle Sense View, Model Copies, Expanded Annotation, XR2VR Contents.
"Eagle Sense" In-slide Navigation
Inside the Presentation Deck
Annotation
When the controller's reticle hovers over the annotation mark, the note will expand as a small billboard and keep looking at the user to make sure the best reading angle
The annotation can be triggered by the controller and also by the user's gaze when closing up. I designed and tested a trapezoid shape view zone (40x20) as a more comfortable angle to let the user read the annotation note.
"Vacuum"
"Vaccum" is a simple interaction that allows the user to grab a copy of a 3D objects in close up or from a distance away. This interaction was later put into the Google VR unitypackage as a demo of the 6DoF Dev Kits.
A Quick Branding
QUESTIONS YET TO BE STUDIED
Editor mode
Editor in both desktop and XR mode
GSlide in XR?
Local and remote co-working
More templates and themes
Universal grabbing?
Sound.
Speaker or headphone?
What is a good way to notify the user there would be sound?
More Complicated Co-presence Logic
Showing object copy on hand to nearby user.
Saving the object copy in the hand
A public library of saved objects
TAKEAWAY
Document everything, document them well. Taking records of previous versions of design and prototypes are useful for reflection and analysis later on.
Test earlier. And be a good listener for other ideas. “Fail early, fail fast”
Keep Learning. From reading previous documents to watching Unity tutorials and asking questions, learning is the best way to gain inspirations and stay on hook.
Other Projects
Immersive LabArchitecture/Mixed Reality
Crane: an Ongoing ProjectA Design Language for XR
XR Presentation @GoogleProfessional Tool in XR
Project Kiosk10 Foot UI
SingularityA Game about AI
Interaction Designer
Cornell Tech
Mixed Reality Collaboratory
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Ke Ding