INTRO

TL;DR - XR Presentation is an exploration of how to give a presentation in passthrough VR and 5-10 users co-presence scenario.

• Google Daydream - Immersive Wearables
• May 2018 - Aug 2018
• Interaction Design + Mixed Reality
• Unity/C#/Sketch/Principle/C4D

ENVIRONMENT

• Lenovo Mirage Solo (Vega)
• Google 6DoF Dev Kit (Nova)

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.

• See-Through/Pass-Through

By turning on the front cameras on Mirage Solo, the headset can put the video feed of the physical world into the immersive experience.

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

Rethink the function of a presentation: what is it and why are we using it?

The essence of a presentation is sharing and explaining ideas.

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.

So, how might a presentation benefit from XR?

Presenters can demonstrate materials that have volume and in a more dynamic way.

By giving audience meaningful interactions, they can be more engaged as well.

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.

“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

Landing Page - Prototype with Unity + Nova

Ver 2 has...

• Less difference in depth
• Adding volume to the main board and nav bar
• Navbar is moved to the right to avoid too much occlusion
• UI is tilted 25° for better readability

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

• We can have a “Dashboard” for the deck.
  
• This will be a personal view only visible to the owner of the deck.
  
• Folding the contents in the current slide, and giving a preview of previous and next slides.
  
• Can be called out immediately by holding down a certain button and perform a quick action by releasing the button.

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.