Spatial Computing: Vision Pro Apps
2024 - Product, Interaction design
Background
I’ve always been interested in AR/VR technology. I’ve had previous experience designing AR applications from Google’s ARCore to Meta’s Quest. When Apple’s Vision Pro released at the beginning of this year, I revisited the industry, which coincided with a large interest from our clients to find novel ways of integrating this technology into their practices. After countless discussions with internal stakeholders and portfolio leads, we settled on Hospitality and Financial services as the biggest ask. Below is a walkthrough of my thought process and experiences while creating them.
Process
Aside from standard documentation, designing for a spatial context is largely new and untapped without well-documented processes. When it first launched, the app market was mostly a combination of established apps from tech companies and half-baked indie applications.
When it comes to the visual aspect of the design, the framework I largely follow is taste and collaboration combined with extensive iteration. This manifests in a circular process of seeing what could be improved, tweaking elements to make them better, and comparing old vs. new.
2D Views
For the 2D views, I settled a modular design aesthetic which worked well in highlighting certain elements with depth and glass transparency. Since responsiveness is meant to be flexible in screens, modular design worked well. In terms of aesthetic, more than anything we wanted to capture the vision of making objects feel like they’re a part of your space.
Sequential Intent Problem
There’s a unique design challenge that comes with controlling the entire interface with your eyes, something I’ve seen coined as the ‘Sequential Intent Problem’. Having to look directly at each element you want to interact with means that tasks can only be done sequentially, unlike having a dedicated input like mouse and keyboard. The fatigue from having to do this constantly is real, and especially for new users who would be demoing this product, it was important to be intentional about how long certain actions would take.
3D Views
The more involved portion of this project was designing the 3D assets and spatial contexts that differentiated these applications from their desktop counterparts. Throughout this process, we asked “Why would someone want to use this application in the Vision Pro?”
The more involved portion of this project was designing the 3D assets and spatial contexts that differentiated these applications from their desktop counterparts. Throughout this process, we asked “Why would someone want to use this application in the Vision Pro?”
Creating immersive views for Hospitality
Once a user is interested in a specific listing, rather than looking at staged images or a floor plan, imagine being able to traverse and visualize your stay exactly how it would look. Using Vision Pro’s depth and scale management, I created a beach villa to help users understand their bookings. Imagine being immersed in the space you were about to book.
Creating augmented reality views for Financial Services
For the augmented views for financial services, we wanted them to run inside volumes so they could be used in shared space with other apps, going back to my point about how we want things to feel part of their space. The 3D portion of this app is based on the retirement tracker to help people visualize their assets in a better way. Data visualization like this helps to shift perception for how large or small an asset may be.
Both proof of concept apps are being socialized across industries by portfolio leads.