UX Binge-Watch, Season 1: Virtual Reality
After finishing Mr. Robot and Transparent, I needed to find my next binge-watching endeavor. Instead of starting a new random TV show, I've decided to use my free hours to learn more about VR from a UX perspective (after all, the future of our profession is on it). That was when I came up with UX Binge-Watch, Season 1: Virtual Reality™.
Hope you enjoy the 9 episodes :)
Episode 1: The one where we start understanding VR
Mike Alger made a great introduction video to VR design. If you have only 18 minutes, make this the one video you watch.
Episode 2: Oculus demo
Nothing like watching some demos to better understand the possibilities and limitations. You probably watched an Oculus demo at some point (or even played with one by now), but it is still good to watch this ~30 sec. video to observe the controls and gestures.
Episode 3: Talking with your eyes
Some VR headsets don't come with controls, which require most of actions to be done with the eyes and head movement. This could be a big constraint if your VR app requires some sort of login or input, but also made me think how it could help people with mobility impairment.
Episode 4: Painting with
It's interesting to observe how all the menus and options are displayed in this painting VR tool from Google. Good old days when PaintBrush in a Windows 3.0 amazed us. In fact, one could say that both are apps used to help introduce a new interface to people.
Episode 5: Cabin in the Woods
Virtual Reality allows us to create worlds within the skybox — and this space could be your new home. Great demo of Gear VR, showing how a 2D movie could be played in a virtual living room, cozier than my old studio in Tenderloin.
Episode 6: The Empathy Machine
VR eliminates the need for external frames. For the first time, the medium is no longer outside us, but within us. The paint is human experience and the canvas is our consciousness. The idea of an externalized medium ceases to exist.
Episode 7: A dystopian future
I like to believe more in Mill's VR future than the one from the short film below, which is worse than Matrix (sorry for the spoiler). It's worth watching for the movie itself, but also for the responsibility that designers have on how technology is used by people.
Episode 8: Samsung talk
If you got this far and want to go further, here are two longer videos (talks), from Samsung and Google about transitioning from 2d to 3D design.
Samsung:
Episode 9: Google talk
And the Google one:
Episode 10 (new): The Fleshy Part of VR
I had to comeback to this list and add an extra episode (like a christmas special) of the recent demo of social features on Oculus Connect. The combination of Augmented Reality and social interactions is the fleshy part will be for business and UX designers.
Hope you have enjoyed the season. If you have any video or article about VR to share, post in the comments :)