Today’s class was very fun as we all got to try out VR headsets, it was my first time ever experiencing this, having this immersive experience in class was was very interesting because it was something that we had talked about and watched videos on, so having it in real life and testing it out motivated me for my project. We had Ronin in today’s lecture and he gave us a few AR/ VR resources that we could use to make the background for our project, we then tested this background in the VR headset
I visited the Many Worlds website and I tested out some of their scenarios. It’s a fun website to play with but I don't think the scenes it generates are good enough for usage because of how blurry they look.
Meta Horizon provides design principles, UI/UX best practices, and development resources for creators who are building interactive experiences in Horizon Worlds.
Out of all the guidance they provide one that really stood out to me is the “Key Considerations” when it comes to designing VR/ AR. I found this site very insightful an these are some of the key takeaways that I got from it:
In this video that I watched Apple’s Design team introduces the basics of designing for a spatial operating system. They explain that spatial apps live in the user's real world environment and should feel natural, human centred, and immersive. Something that I really took from this video is how design should focus on comfort, allowing users to stay seated and avoid too much physical movement. Depth and scale help create focus and hierarchy, while light, shadow, and sound add realism. They talk about how depth is a great tool for hierarchy and focus; it affects how we interact with virtual objects. Nearby objects suggests something interactive whereas far away objects are meant to be observed. Using light and shadow lets user know the positions of objects by casting light or shadow on them. Apple’s goal is to keep their users engaged and comfortable without making them feel uncomfortable, an example of this is making text flat instead of 3D as it makes it easy to perceive and read. Their talk on immersive experiences is also insightful, they talk about how they use different states or immersion for different user experiences, this is achieved by manipulation using dimming, lighting, and even immersing the user in a new environment.
Principles of spatial design - WWDC23 - Videos - Apple Developer
As I mentioned prior I really enjoyed today’s class; and since I’m my project is going to be based on AR I am really looking forward to it. I plan on putting all the new knowledge that I have gained to use. Another fun thing we did in today’s class was that we built our own VR using Figma, Ronan was very helpful during this tutorial. We used an Apple Vision Figma plugin.