The Role of UX Design in Extended Reality

Extended reality (XR) refers to any digital enhancement of the real-world. XR is made up of AR, MR, and VR, which stands for augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality. User experience (UX) design has an important role to play in focusing on the user in XR.

What is UX Design?

UX design focuses on what users need, what they value, and what their abilities and limitations are. It stands at the intersection between the experiences of users and the desires of businesses. UX is made up of many interconnected disciplines like psychology, visual design, programming, interactive design, and accessibility and accommodation. XR design is similar but asks a bit more of designers.

What is Extended Reality?

XR is a descriptor rather than a field of its own. It encompasses any situation where the real-world and digital environment interact. Also known as immersive reality, it is an exciting area of developing technology made up of three discernable sections: augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality.

Augmented Reality

Of the three types of XR, AR is the most familiar to users and the most technologically developed. AR projects digital layers on top of the real-world to help people perform tasks more efficiently, access important information, or simply have fun. Heads-up displays on cars are an example of AR. Information like fuel level, speed, and driver alerts are projected at eye level on the lower part of the car’s windshield. This use of AR allows drivers to stay informed without taking their eyes off of the road. 

Another example of AR is the game Pokemon Go. Players use a smartphone app to find and interact with creatures from the game. Another popular use of AR is the collection of filters users can access in Snapchat. The filters add a layer to photos on the phone that makes people look like different animals, adds sparkles or rainbow effects, or applies virtual makeup. Google Live View in Google Maps projects directions and landmarks onto the walking version of the app.

Google Lens enhances the search experience by letting users aim the phone at an object and click on the lens icon. There is no typing necessary to search. Google lens will identify the object and bring up search results. AR promises to provide many more experiences in the future.

Virtual Reality

Unlike AR, which lays a layer of experience over the real-world, VR immerses the user into a different reality altogether. VR requires a headset known as a head-mounted display or HMD that connects with a phone or other devices to display images to the user. 

VR has long been the territory of science fiction but the technology is developing rapidly. It is most popular in gaming with new offerings coming out constantly. Some of the most popular games are Beat Saber, Batman: Arkham VR, Arizona Sunshine, and Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, which mostly involve hitting things, but there are also VR games like Lost Recipes, a cooking simulator, and Minecraft VR that lets you enter the virtual world you have constructed.

Games are not the only area where VR is showing its uses. There are applications in education, sports training, and military skills. VR can be used to show people other places, let them practice skills that can be used in the real-world, and build confidence in a learning environment.

Mixed Reality

MR is what it sounds like, a mixture of augmented and virtual reality. Users can interact with digital objects to affect change in the real-world. More powerful than AR or VR, MR is still developing and many applications are expected in different fields, including manufacturing, medicine, the military, and education.

One of the leaders of MR technology is Microsoft with their Hololens Smart Glasses. Unlike the HMD used in VR, the Hololens is a pair of glasses that the user wears to allow them to interact with a complicated environment digitally. This technology is just in the beginning stages, but it promises to have an important role to play in the future.

UX and XR 

As new technologies are developed, it is important for UX Designers to study the experience and have input into the plan for products. One big difference between traditional UX design and XR design is the difference between a 2-D space and a 3-D space. There is also more emphasis on designing the objects that users manipulate. 

Typical UX Design Process

Some designers see the typical UX design process as having four steps and some see it as five, but all consider UX design as a collaborative, team process with steps that repeat as they are needed. 

Research: Listen to What the User Has to Say

This step is often called Empathyor Understandingbecause the role of the UX Designer is to connect with the users. This is done through research in the form of surveys and interviews to find out what the experience of the user is like. Observing and listening are important skills at the empathy stage of the process.

Definition: Use the Data to Describe the Problem

In the definition phase, the UX Designer uses the data collected through research to create a detailed description of the user experience. 

Ideation: Generate Ideas

Once the patterns emerge, design enters the third phase in which team members generate ideas about how to solve problems and improve the experience. Ideation usually takes place in a workshop setting. 

Prototyping: Create a Working Model

A prototype is a simulation of a website or app that gives an idea of how the product will look and feel to users. The amount of detail in the prototypes is useful for looking at user behavior during the testing phase. 

Testing: Create a Product That is Easy and Enjoyable to Use

The next phase is testing the product or website to see if the user experience is what the team expected. This isn’t called the final step because the design process is iterative and repeats over and over.

OOUX Process

Object Oriented UX Design works a bit differently. While the central focus is still the user experience, the sequence is changed a bit. Instead of using the data and testing to design objects, the objects are designed first and then actions are assigned to them. The steps of the OOUX process are described by Cornel Hillmann as follows:

• Discovery of objects
• Definition of objects.
• Setting up relationships
• Determining object rankings

Design in XR needs to consider the safety and comfort of users and the different environments they are in. XR isn’t confined to a screen and it is used in public and private settings alike. The design is dependent upon limitations and specifications of the hardware, which changes and evolves rapidly. It is important not to overwhelm users, to give them cues to lead them through the experience, and to let them feel in control. 

Where to Learn UX Design

If you would like to learn more about UX/UI design to switch to a new career, one of the best ways to do that is to sign up for classes. You can choose classes that meet in-person or online to learn design software and other applications. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to show you how to do things. Training is part or full-time and available weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.

The best way to prepare for a career shift to a field like UX design is to enroll in a bootcamp or certificate program. These are intensive training courses that run from a few weeks to a few months and will cover motion graphics and animation in much more depth than tutorials can. Another plus of training is that you will leave class with a professional-quality sample video portfolio that you can show to prospective employers.

Conclusion

It’s easy to learn UX design and start a new career. Check out Noble Desktop’s UX design classes. Choose between in-person sessions in NYC at Noble’s location or sign up for live online UX design courses and attend from anywhere. Use Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me to find other UX design bootcamps in your area.