Timeline
2 Week Design Sprint
Role
UX/UI Designer
Introduction
After the launch of Apple's Vision Pro, my first thought was if I bought this product, what would I want to use it for? I sat with it for a few days and eventually decided that live events could be made immersive and more accessible with this technology.
I then started ideating and sketching potential solutions or enhancements an AR/VR experience could bring.
Problem
How can live events be accessible to the masses?
Live events are hard to access yet essential for community building. Ticket prices physical limitations, and distance all come to mind. Post-Covid events like concerts and sports games have made a massive comeback, but this type of leisure can't be accessed by many.
Solution
Fully Immersive experience for live events
Spatial UI Research
Familiar: Spatial platform interfaces should be user-friendly, with easy-to-use sidebars, tabs, and search fields.
Windows features a new visual language, and sizing is optimized for comfortable viewing. Users can grab the window bar to adjust the orientation. Keynote and Safari offer different sizes for optimized content viewing, while tabs and toolbars maximize content space.
Human-Centered: Should be able to Comfortably place objects relative to the person's head
The interface should work at different heights and positions while anchoring them in space. Anchoring also makes the window less distracting and more intuitive.
Dimensional: The interface should work in any space by using dimming and passthrough.
Overlapping helps people focus while adding depth as a new hierarchy focus and variable. To achieve an immersive experience, ensure that light and shadow shine with color and that the window displays shadows over the space. Use subtle depth text that is flat as an interface element.
Design
Nailing the spatial UI
At first, the direction I went to which had been laid out to me by the CEO was in a direction of music streaming analysis and separate AI integration. However, upon doing research with independent artists it became clear that making the experience feel as if you are in conversation or collaborating with the software was crucial. The integration, therefore, had to be with the data and include social media streaming as that seemed to be the main way to get around the attention labels bring.
Testing and Changes
The key components and process
Based on feedback from peers, the co-founders, and friends, I iterated the design over months and left with a few major changes.
The key decision is to make it either a single screen or completely immersive rather than a wrap-around or multiple smaller screens.
Finished Product
The End Result
Conclusions + Results
What did I learn?
FrontRow was my first deep dive into the realm of spatial design and UI. I felt I had to apply principles from classes I had taken on interiors and architecture as well traditional UX ones.
Come from a human approach. Spatial design is still relatively new and not an intuitive experience for many. Head tracking, positioning, and preventing eye fatigue and headaches were all considerations in screen size and placement.
A world without a traditional screen. Glassmorphism presents an exciting and innovative design trend that holds promise for spatial UIs. Its distinctive visual appeal and immersive qualities can elevate the user experience, but to ensure visibility and usability a balance must be struck between aesthetics and functionality, designers can leverage glass morphism to create captivating and user-friendly spatial UIs that resonate with users and stand the test of time.
Context is key. By leveraging context-aware design decisions, incorporating user feedback, and employing contrast optimization strategies, I learned how to strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality, ultimately enabling the creation of captivating and user-friendly spatial UIs that meet users' expectations and needs.
