The Laws of Simplicity Applied to VR
4. Learn
Knowledge makes everything simple.
Virtual interfaces and environments need to find the right balance between familiar and surprising.
I remember being blown away when the first iPhone came out. It was a completely new product concept that merged a phone, a computer, and an mp3 player in one device. It had a touchscreen that magically responded to gestures, which was ground-breaking at the time. And despite being so new, the interface felt surprisingly intuitive. The iOS design borrowed most of its graphics and interaction patterns from real life, making it instantly familiar. The Notes app, for instance, looked just like a physical notepad, and interacting with it was as easy as you’d expect.
When introduced, innovative products often rely on familiar design patterns to avoid being too disruptive, and that is certainly the case in VR. Most of the virtual interfaces today borrow interactive patterns from mobile or computer platforms, and virtual environments are quite literal in copying their real-life equivalent. But as Dr. Maeda’s book suggests, while familiarity is necessary, a certain level of surprise helps people engage. While we don’t want to overwhelm, adding a dash of new and unexpected can make virtual interfaces and environments more inspiring, motivating people to play with them.
There is a once-in-a-career opportunity for designers to experiment and create 3D interface standards that will eventually define this category. Just like mobile design went from skeuomorphic to mobile-native, VR-native patterns can make better use of the technology to create exciting new interfaces that are more appropriate for this medium. What is the 3D equivalent of a drop-down menu, for example? What is the hand-gesture equivalent of a mouse right click? I could go on and on.
As for virtual environments, familiarity is important to keep people at ease and wanting to spend time in VR. Virtual environments need to be carefully designed for comfort, but that doesn’t necessarily mean simulating real-life spaces. As long as we don’t dramatically break the laws of physics, and honor some basic architectural rules around space size, colors, textures and temperature, we can make people feel comfortable, yet surprised and delighted. After all, why choose reality when you are in VR?
The Laws of Simplicity Applied to VR
Introduction: Inspired by John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity.
- Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
- Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
- Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
- Learn: Knowledge makes everything simple.
- Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other.
- Context: What lies on the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
- Emotion: More emotions are better than less.
- Trust: In simplicity we trust.
- Failure: Some things can never be made simple.
- The One: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.
