Oculus Launch Pad — Week 10 — Thoughts on UX / UI for VR
An Interview with UX Designer Kent Rahman of Thoughtworks
Kiira: Do you remember your first VR experience and what the UX and UI were for that?
Kent: An Oculus Tuscany Demo. It used a game pad to move around, which people quickly relaized made people nauseous. It was before teleporting existed. We’ve come a long ways since then.
The UI was like a floating frame — which was basically for debugging and you walked around this mansion in tuscany. It was beautiful. The immersion was on a level that I’d never experienced before. I t was so mind blowing feeling like you were there; a true sense of presence in the Italian countryside.
Kiira: UX vs. UI what’s the difference in VR? Is there a difference?
Kent: Yeah, it’s an even bigger difference. The User Experience in VR is much broader than what you would imagine UX in web design. When you think about User Experience in VR you can control elements of the experience that you can’t control in web. [In VR] you can control the weather, sound, ambient, the environment…you really control the experience, a sensory experience.
UI is the interface, the buttons you press, menus you see. In VR there’s a blurring of the line… What would traditionally be UX — context, weather, they can actually become UI.
Kiira: What do you want to see more of and what do you want to see less of?
Kent: Less scroll bars and sliders and 2D user interface stuff. I want to see much more creative use of the environment as an expression of functionality within the experience. This medium allows us to do new things in a completely unique way, stop borrowing from the past and start inventing the future.
Kiira: In our game, if you can pick just one thing, what aspect are you most excited to see the player interact with?
Kent: Picking up the buildings and throwing them. I think that we’ve spent a lot of time on that, on getting that experience to feel right. In our testing the mechanic is really engaging. It makes you feel like you have super powers. I’m really excited to seeing how people react to being given a magical ability; when they do the impossible. It helps people dream. Helps you think about what is possible…in reality.
