2D vs 3D Immersive Interfaces
What Happened
I had recently been experimenting with bringing in architects, interior designers, and other spatial designers to help with product design at my company, BadVR. My thoughts around this topic fell into 2 categories:
- Idea #1: Immersive (VR/AR) product design should take a spatial-first approach (vs a 2D-first approach).
- Idea #2: Therefore, it makes sense to hire spatial designers when designing immersive products.
I’ve struggled to retrain experienced 2D product designers to think spatially. It’s understandable— after a lifetime spent mastering the best practices of 2D design, many are not keen to let go of everything they know to be true about design, just to become a beginner all over again. Because of this, they tend to cling tightly to 2D. These sorts of designers love forcing 2D workflows and interfaces into immersive spaces, which usually leads to immersive experiences full of floating, flat screens. This misses the entire potential — and value — of immersive technology, and it drives me insane. A former product designer myself, I absolutely hate screen-heavy immersive products and I strongly feel they are a total waste of the medium.
Given these thoughts, the argument of spatial-first (3D) vs 2D-first product design was on my mind. I could not stop thinking about it. So, I did what I always do when I can’t get something out of my head: I ranted about it on Twitter!
I then continued on with my Sunday, rewatching one of my favorite films, ‘Belladonna of Sadness’ (highly recommend if you’re into very weird proto-anime 1970s Japanese films about witches) for visual inspiration.
Then something unexpected happened.
John Carmack, the man, the legend, responded to my tweet. Wow! And what did he say? He told me I was wrong, lol.
Not expecting such a response from him, I did what I always do whenever someone disagrees with me — I told him it was he who was wrong.
I tried my best to understand his position. Was there something about this topic I had missed? Some angle I had left unexamined? Was he privy to some magical knowledge, reserved only for the coolest of the cool, given only to the type of people who have Trent Reznor score their games?
After rethinking both sides of the argument, after re-reviewing my data and my own experiences, I still believed I was right. However, I hoped John would explain his position further.
My wish was granted. The next day, John posted about the topic again, this time, on Facebook. In his post, he continued to expand upon the positions taken in his original tweet.
Turns out, despite our EPIC TWITTER FEUD™, we actually see eye to eye on a lot of points. The issue, it seems, comes down to semantics and the meanings of product design, UX design, and interface design.
My Response
When I originally posted my spicy hot take on the importance of making immersive products, well, immersive, my commentary was focused on UX & product design, and not so much geared towards UI design. This is an important distinction to make because there is a big difference between a primarily flat (or immersive) user experience and a primarily flat (or immersive) user interface. Likewise, there’s a difference between both of the above and primarily flat (or immersive) product design.
Terminology
Let’s define each of these terms before proceeding forward:
- Product design = the design of the entire product. This includes the problem it solves and the value it adds to the user.
- User experience (UX)= the experience the user has while utilizing the product to perform work / complete a workflow.
- User interface (UI)= the visual display of information within the product that assists the user with completing one / many workflows.
- Spatial-first = Approaching design with default of 3D, not 2D.
Immersive Product Strategy
My belief is that all immersive companies must approach product design and and UX design from a spatial-first mindset. The product and it’s primary use must always be fully immersive, or delivered spatially, to maximize the value add of the product to the end user and to fully utilize the benefits of immersive technology. If immersion does not add fundamental value to the product — and there is no value in performing the primary workflows spatially — the product should not have been immersive in the first place.
However, I do agree with John that UI design must not always be spatial, although I do believe it should still be approached from a spatial-first perspective. There are certain situations where flat UI screens are preferable and perform the job better than a 3D alternative. This is something I fully acknowledge and even something I’ve advocated for many times within our own company design reviews. I’ve nixed floating islands menus, or menus presented as bookshelves because, while creative, they are obtuse and difficult to understand. They are forcing 3D for 3D’s sake, and not utilizing 3D because it adds any tangible value. In such situations, I do agree with John, a simple screen is better.
I live in absolute fear of creating the immersive equivalent of the uber-cringefest known as Microsoft Bob.
My Approach
My approach to immersive product design has always been to use the real world as my comp and follow the standards and best practices of real world design as much as possible. Many people think of immersive product design as a ‘new frontier’ but really, it’s simply a digitized rehashing of the concept of spatial design. Spatial design has existed for thousands of years, predating 2D design by many millennia, and there are a robust set of standards and best practices that guide it. I look to these when designing a spatial product, first and foremost. I ask myself — if this was the real world, would I make this flat? Or would it be spatial?
Admittedly, the real world is not a perfect comp. Humans struggle with depth on today’s immersive hardware. We have difficulty focusing at multiple focal planes while immersed because depth isn’t rendered digitally in the same manner in which it is perceived IRL. We must be careful with depth as a variable in spatial design and not assume that it’s a direct 1:1 comp to reality. That being said, depth is most painfully felt with flat, text heavy objects (i.e. UI panels). The solution then is to minimize text-heavy UI panels as much as possible, or make sure that such panels are never placed too far from the user (or on too many different focal planes) — or all of the above. As Occam’s razor tells us, simple solutions are more likely to be correct, and my preference is to simply avoid text-heavy UI panels as much as possible unless absolutely necessary.
Spatial (3D) First — 2D Second
Flatness within immersive spaces is unavoidable, and even necessary, in the same way we often utilize flat signs within our real world. Certain situations and actions are best conveyed using flatness. 3D street signs are not better than 2D signs; 3D billboards are not significantly better than 2D ones. In the same way, sometimes flat, floating UI panels are exactly what the doctor ordered. However, they should always augment a core spatial-first experience. Drivers of immersive products should never be 2D.
If your immersive product is comprised primarily of flat UI panels — try again! If the core workflow of your product is performed via flat panels in an immersive space, what’s the value add of immersion? Why would a user not just perform that essentially flat workflow on a flat screen instead? Immersive workflows should always be impossible on a 2D screen.
Additionally, humans have cognitive limits and 100 floating screens are not inherently better than the 6 monitors you can fit on a normal desk. Scale is not valuable if it cannot be utilized. I promise you no one on earth would prefer to sit at a ‘virtual desk’ when they have the option of a real one. Why? Because the ‘virtual desk’ offers no tangible benefit to the user. It’s simply novel, a gimmick, a ‘virtual desk’ because you could. That’s not enough. Immersion must be utilized in a tangibly beneficial way and it must add real value to the user.
This is why a spatial-first approach to product and UX design is essential. It helps avoid this ‘immersion for immersion’s sake’ problem. It encourages designers to create immersive products that fully utilize the potential of immersive technology. Spatial-first designing is difficult for 2D product designers, but it helps them avoid gimmicky, no-value-add products and stops them from shoehorning 2D workflows into immersive spaces.
A spatial-first design team doesn’t port over an existing 2D workflow. Instead, they identify the problem addressed by the 2D workflow, then see if immersion could solve this problem better. If so, then they design that better spatial solution. I’ll be the first person to say that if a spatial product does not solve a problem better, we should keep performing the work in 2D.
Final Thoughts
Taking a spatial-first approach to designing immersive products is a hill I will die on. There are far too many gimmicky, no-value-add, lazy, 2D-ported immersive products out there. Each one of them hurts the industry with its poor product design. Every time a user puts on a headset and has a negative, or even just useless, experience in VR or AR, we all lose. Many evangelists think of VR and AR as the next evolution in tech platform, in the same way that smartphones were the next step after computers. People assumed that users would immediately buy headsets simply because they were the next ‘thing.’ But everyone seemed to forget that smartphones had a built in utility. They WERE PHONES. They placed calls. Their utility was inherent.
However, with VR and AR headsets, there is no built in utility. The first question people ask is — what does it do? Until we can answer that question, users won’t buy en masse. It’s that simple. We need to focus on identifying use cases and workflows that can be tangibly improved with immersive technology. We need to figure out what users can do better with immersion. We need to stop shoehorning the technology into any and every existing 2D workflow by adding floating UI panels around a ‘virtual desk.’
Some workflows are better in 2D. Leave them there. Go find the workflows that can benefit in some real way from immersion, then start designing the solution with a spatial-first mindset.
Epilogue
Hacker News won’t pick up this post. SlashDot has no idea who I am. John probably doesn’t even know me apart from my Twitter thread that appeared on his timeline (for some unknown reason). So why am I sharing my thoughts on immersive product design?
Because I’m passionate. Because I spend my days eating and breathing it, and through trial and error, I’ve come to these hard won insights through my work at BadVR. Am I wrong? Maybe. But — I may also be right.
Extreme positions tend to be wrong. A combination of both 2D and 3D design approaches is probably best. I hope I’ve been able to adequately describe my theory & approach to this topic; when I think 2D is appropriate and where I favor 3D. I look forward to hearing the community’s thoughts on this as well.
The 2D vs 3D immersive interface conversation is important. I’m thankful to have catalyzed it. I look forward to many more Twitter battles and long, late night conversations on the subject. I also look forward to helping discover & document new best practices for immersive design. 😉
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Suzanne is the CEO & founder of BadVR, the world’s first immersive data analytics platform. She previously led product design and UX at 2D analytics companies including Remine, CREXi, and Osurv. A recipient of Magic Leap’s Independent Creator’s Program grant, and a past winner of Zillow’s Zip Code public data hackathon, Suzanne is passionate about the intersection of product design, immersive technology and data. In her spare time, she travels for inspiration (75 countries and counting) and is a published poet. Her hero is Alejandro Jodorowsky.
