Virtual reality: VR won’t kill UI design, AR will
Sam Applebee, Co-founder — Kickpush
Kickpush is a product design studio in London founded in 2014 by Alex Deruette and Sam Applebee.
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In January we set out to investigate virtual and augmented reality from the perspective of User Interface design. These emerging technologies will bring monumental changes to digital product design; that much is certain. What’s less clear is the part that UI designers will play in its evolution, and it looks like we’re underprepared.
In this article we’ll lay out our forecast for the future and make the case for digital designers to engage with this exciting new frontier of design. We’ve conducted some experiments of our own, and every day next week we’ll reveal some more of the results on our Dribbble page.
- * Update 1: Comfort zone
- * Update 2: User interface playground
- * Update 3: GUI Canvas
- * Update 4: Depth layers
Fantasy is becoming reality
When the holodeck made its Star Trek TV debut in 1987 viewers watched avidly as the crew used the infinitely programmable room for research — and sometimes for recreation… ‘Is that a phaser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’
The idea of stepping into another world at will captivated the imagination of a generation, but only in the past few years have those dreams of living inside of our creations begun to come to fruition.
Now, as we all know, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive got the idea for the iPad from Star Trek (cue internet rage). It’s curious to wonder whether Facebook’s acquisition of VR leader Oculus was partly driven by boyhood desires of Mark Zuckerberg. Now at the helm of a multi-billion dollar company, why not make some childhood fantasies come true?
Tech giants HTC, Sony, Microsoft and Facebook have all made forays into VR hardware. So far the price tags, ranging from $500–3000, have largely constrained their popularity to gamers looking for a more immersive experience.
As an amateur you can transform your smartphone into an affordable VR headset for as little as $15. ‘I’ve tried Google Cardboard and it was rubbish’ you say? Well yes, it is a bit rubbish for now. But this is just the beginning.
Interface design must evolve
The future looks… sexy. Never ones to miss out on a trend, the ubiquitous PornHub launched a virtual reality section on their website. They must have jumped the gun when we said we were running some ‘VR experiments’.
It’s no secret that the porn industry has a track record of accelerating early stage technologies. You can thank porn companies for online payment systems and video streaming, along with a whole host of media capture and playback devices and software. Eventually the rest of the world comes up with other more friendly applications.
So, presuming that humanity’s insatiable desire for nakedness will continue to drive progress in VR technology, there are three other important trends that together spell the end of UI design as it exists today.
Trends toward User Integrated Interfaces
- Device convergence : The distinction between devices is becoming less clear. At the end of the day all of our smartphones, laptops, tablets, phablets and smartwatches are an interface, inputs and outputs. The gaps between them are getting smaller and have perhaps already disappeared.
- App agnosticism : The flip-side of device convergence — Apps are less frequently constrained to certain platforms or devices. Apps are tools, and the best tools to perform the same function regardless of the situation. That’s why trumpdonald.org has a mobile version.
- Human / computer integration : We’re increasingly willing to let technology into our lives, and trust it in ever more personal ways: Collecting data, analysing our actions, making suggestions and shaping our decisions. Though implants haven’t really caught on yet, wearable adoption is growing at pace.
A screen is just a medium for an interface, and we expect our apps to work irrespective of whether we’re actively using them. So that begs the question: Do we even need screens at all?
“That begs the question: Do we even need screens at all?”
Obviously yes for now. But for how long?
The post-screen era
There are lots of indications that life without screens will be possible, and soon.
- Transparent displays are regularly sighted at tech shows like CES, including a super-flexible LG version that you can roll up like a newspaper.
- Researchers have proven that they can remotely power and control an LED embedded into a contact lens.
- Haptic feedback and gesture control technologies like Leap Motion are making it possible to interact with apps without physical inputs.
- Speech recognition coupled with semantic analysis is making Siri actually useful… but… painfully… slowly…
In sum, we’re heading toward a world where you have your own personal lifeOS. Interfaces laid on top of your everyday visual existence. No cumbersome devices. No clumsy apps.
You’ll read the news off of the pavement in front of you as you walk to work. You’ll meet your friend for a coffee in a London park while they’re in New York. You’ll do your work without ever having to sit behind a desk.
Bwooooshhh— that was the sound of your mind blowing.
But what does this all mean for UI designers?
The future in reality
Augmented reality contact lenses are still several years away. The technologies mentioned above will need a lot of development before they’re ready to be used in consumer products that could support a lifeOS.
But when you think about it, is there a major difference between an augmented reality interface and a virtual reality interface? A virtual world is still a world. And as the guys at Visualise are showing, we’re getting pretty good at recording the real world for people to jump into asynchronously.
The problem for designers is that to make an interface for VR you need to have specialist skills, and be able to program in 3D. How many UI designers do you know who can do that? There aren’t many.
The vast majority of human expertise in designing interfaces exists in the heads of people who aren’t able to apply it to this new context. And that’s crazy, right?
What are you gonna do about it?
We set out to try to bridge the gap between UI design and virtual reality interfaces. We learnt some Unity 3D and did a tonne of research, and we’ll be sharing the results with you this week.
Check our Dribbble and Twitter each day next week for a new update!
If you’re a designer or work in VR or AR — get involved and stimulate the conversation below by writing a response.
Sam
Cofounder, Kickpush
Connect with us: Website | Dribbble | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram
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