What types of UI elements are there in VR? Most of our VR ideas originate in movies and games. There are some specialities when creating a 360° environment, but I find it always useful to start with what you know and then adapt to the new medium. 3 UI types in VR design: Diegetic UI (drama UI) The plot UI is to let the objects in the environment show the information to the user by itself, for example, the clock on the wall shows the time. It can be difficult for the user to know if these objects can interact; in general, if the user should interact with these objects, they must add visual tools or "tips" to those objects. In fact, their natural fit with the environment makes these objects more immersive, but sometimes the interactivity is not obvious. Spatial UI These are unrealistic objects or graphic designs in 3D space that increase depth, light, focus, and resizing to correspond to other objects in the environment. The less realistic the shape, the easier it is for the user to understand that it is a foreign element and can't help but tempted to start interacting with it. Because the appearance and feel are different, the spatial UI is easy to affect the immersion of VR, but it is very effective for the user to understand that the object is interactive. Non-diegetic UI (non-dramatic UI) In traditional non-VR projects, the UI is usually displayed at the top of the interface to display information such as health, scores, etc., often referred to as HUD. This is the so-called non-drama UI-user interface has nothing to do with the game world, but it has a certain effect on the players who play the game. In VR, this type of object has a look and position that is completely inconsistent with the realistic 360° world. It is not part of the 3D space and there is no depth. This type of object is very useful for smartphone-based VR and Room-Scale VR if you need to push information that is critical to the user. Whatever you do, remember to feel immersed in the new reality, and it is this that makes VR so special and unique. The UI should not let the user feel that he/she is not part of the environment. You should keep in mind First, you need to create a 2D sketch to detect your thoughts and plan where to display the various UI elements. Your 360° view may look like this: If you think that the text element needs to be larger to make it easier to read, and the link needs to be easy to point and click, I can assure you that the information display is not as big as possible. Imagine how crashed when a user sees such a large option panel on the screen: Zoom out. When the user is standing 1.5 meters away, the size of the display panel in the figure below is the most perfect size. Here is the comfortable perspective you see in VR. When you divide the 360° interface sketch into a 10 x10 scale, the text should only take up 1%. The title can be bigger. If you account for 2% - 4%, then it is still very large in VR . So what do you need to remember when designing a 360-degree UI? The text should be close to the object it is involved in, and the eye should be able to focus at the same distance. The text should be in front of or slightly below our eyes for more natural reading, and this position is also comfortable for the head. Longer text should be rendered in a format that is easy to carry and easy to save so that users can move it to their best view for reading. The best way to achieve this is to provide longer texts, such as in a book, through objects that can be found in real life. The key information can be larger, and even most backgrounds can be hidden to remove spatial references. The UI should be part of the story in space and time and should not be an obstacle. The UI should help to enhance immersion. Sound effects should be added to add realistic immersion. Minimize text; keep immersion as a priority. Additional tips: Quickly upload your 360° sketch or sample to your mobile VR device for testing to understand the size, readability, location, and interactivity of the sketch. prototype All new technologies start in the same way: creativity and prototype. But the most important thing is that we learn from our mistakes. At that disappointing moment, we realized that we didn't reach our goal, but at the same time we were baptized with a lot of knowledge. There are some errors that are very obvious, you can only allow them to appear once - when you start accepting it as part of the entire creative process, you will laugh at it. Zhejiang Synmot Electrical Technology Co., Ltd , https://www.synmot-electrical.com
How do you design a UI for a room-scale VR interactive experience?
As virtual reality ( VR ) moves toward the mainstream, designers and developers are beginning to build Bullet Proof technologies and methods to make the VR environment and experience more interesting and realistic. Here are some tips on how to design a user interface (UI) for a room-scale (room scale) VR interactive experience.