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AR WOrkspace Project

April 2017 - Now

UX Designer / UX Prototyper 

Made with Unity 3D, Framer, Microscoft HoloLens

 

I created a new AR GUI Design Framework called "Surface"

And tested this framework in six different working scenarios.

Augment the physical world with the power of the digital part. 

Give the physical attributes to the digital object. 

Current Problems

Our current solution to process digital information can’t satisfy us anymore and is calling for upgrading. I can easily list three main annoying inconveniences we often encounter as follow:

  1. Multi-screens switching and resource sharing across multi-devices are inconvenient.

  2. The screen always tends to be not big enough for us to deal with some complicated works or just for recreational activities like watching videos.

  3. Mouse, Keyboard or even Touch screen are not natural and easy enough for us to interact with the digital world. 

  4. File sharing is not seamless at all, even though we have countless online drivers, Bluetooth or messaging tools.

  5. When dealing with 3D work with flat screen, the transition between 2D views and 3D effects is exhausting.

AR Solution

Here are the ideal features that AR workspace should allow users to do:

  1. Virtual information like applications and pages become a part of your physical workspace. Freely open and place your virtual applications or pages at any location in this workspace and in any size you want. No more sliding and switching between different pages and applications. 

  2. Collaboration in a more seamless way without being restricted by your laptops’ shells or phone’s shell.

  3. More Natural way to interaction: Selection/Manipulation/Navigation/Typing.

  4. 3D applications are 3D. Doing 3D works in 3D world.

Design Metaphor

“Desktop” is Out of date！Let’s use “Surface”!

AR brings a lot of design challenges for current mobile designers. It’s not just simply transforming the flat screen pages into three dimensions. Desktop, pages, and windows were created for computer and laptop. “Our current GUI system is a conceptual metaphor of a writing desk” as mentioned in the Wikipedia. It was invented to help users interact more easily with the flat-screen computer and mobile phone, these interfaces might be useful for helping mobile users to transit from 2D flat interaction to 3D object manipulation but I think it’s just a temporary compromise.

 

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The Immersive 3D technology requires its own Metaphor. I find a great metaphor “Surface”. It’s NOT the computer named Surface but means:

  1. Augment the Physical Surface with the power of Storing and Displaying Digital INFO. Any surfaces in the physical world could become the containers for digital information.

  2. Give the physical attributes to the digital Surface. We can create virtual surfaces to display information at any place as we wanted.

 

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屏幕快照 2018-11-04 下午2.46.02.png
屏幕快照 2018-11-04 下午2.46.22.png

// Augment the Physical Surface with the power of Storing and Displaying Digital INFO

  • Photo frame to display the digital image

  • The ceiling for playing video

  • Drawing boarding for digital painting

 

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// Give the physical attributes to the digital Surface

  • Resize it

  • Move it

  • Place it on a physical table

  • Attach it to a physical wall

 

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1.png

GUI Design Framework

The framework of AR workspace includes two parts - Surfaces and Events:

  1. Surface could be the virtual or physical. Virtual information like applications and pages become a part of your physical workspace. Freely open and place your virtual applications or pages at any location in this workspace and in any size you want. No more sliding and switching between different pages and applications. Collaboration in a more seamless way without being restricted by your laptops’ shells or phone’s shell.

  2. Events are extracted from our basic working scenarios. We’d better have different working modes to allow users to interact, like Selection/Manipulation/Navigation/Typing, in a more natural way. 3D applications are 3D. Doing 3D works in the 3D world.

AR Framework.png

Design Scenarios

I extracted the following five scenarios of working to design the Events part of the AR workspace:

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