Lee Probert

You have to be careful here though. If you are building a complex VR training exercise, cutting corners may mean missing out critical aspects of the training. Save time and money by keeping core interactions simple. For example, if part of your VR training exercise involves screwing a big bolt down, don't spend days developing the most realistic user interaction with a wrench because, generally, people already know how to do that.

When developing your UX strategy for VR start by role playing in the real world. You may have heard of paper prototyping for web and app UX design? This is a great tangible and productive way to explore UI without the overhead of the tech tools getting in the way. You literally use paper and cardboard and whatever else you have to hand and build the UI. Record yourself talking about how this may work in VR. Use real spaces as inspiration for virtual spaces. Grab some friends and get them to play NPCs or other users. Play. Have fun.

There's a hundred things to say about tech integration with VR, but my main tip would be to not immediately consider hand-tracking as the best solution when it comes to interaction. It's actually not as intuitive as you think it should be. Although experiential VR creators would like to avoid using controllers they generally are the best way to provide simple tools and menu items to the user. Pinching and manipulating with your hands is not for everyone.

How do you want the user to feel and what part do you want them to play? The first part of this question is straightforward; how do you want them to feel? Is this a passive experience designed to immerse and relax the user; or is it a fearful rollercoaster of death and destruction! The second part of the question makes a huge difference to the immersion. What part do you want the user to play? When they don the headset, are they then being themselves, or do you want to put them in somebody else's shoes? This embodiment can completely change how you approach the storytelling but it also has a profound effect on the immersion. It can make people really uncomfortable, or it can empower them in ways that they have not experienced before.

The first thing I ask anyone when they want to do a VR project is "Who is it for, and how will they experience it?" - and what I am trying to establish immediately is whether this is an experience that the user will download and use themselves, or if they are going to be in a museum or other space that would suggest that they may not be familiar with VR and need an enormous amount of hand-holding. The User Experience will drive your creative tech thinking, so start with the UX and the practical stuff.

Still gonna get my frickin badge