A couple of days ago, I was talking with a designer friend about an HoloLens project I was finishing with a company. That was an exciting time, but the more we were talking, the more he was telling me that even if he had the opportunity to work with HoloLens, as a Product Designer, he wouldn’t know where to start.

Well, it was exactly the same for me at first. The chance is, my first project was more a proof-of-concept than anything else, so it was okay to make some mistakes and trying to figure what could be a good workflow on such a project.

Maybe other designers were like us, trying to figure where they should/could start. After working on a second HoloLens project, I thought it would, maybe, be useful to share what is my UX workflow for HoloLens/Mixed Reality at this moment, and improve it as well.

As a side note, this article is not about best practices for HoloLens UX/product design, neither given thoughts about the question « Is Mixed Reality the next big thing? ».

Vision: define your goals

If you’re coming from a mobile/web product design experience, you may already have heard something similar. Defining the goal(s) of your project will help you having a better vision of what you should do and how you could make compromises depending on the situation. HoloLens is not a magic device, and even if I don’t wish you so, you could face some struggles.

But more on, having clear goal(s) will give you a clear thought about the right platform/tool you should use for your project.

Mixed Reality: is HoloLens the right tool for your project?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I heard a lot people talking about HoloLens as a platform. I disagree. Well, as a personal point of view, I tend to see HoloLens, and even more, Mixed Reality, more as a tool rather than a platform.

From this, I tend to ask « Is this the right tool for your project? ».

Few months ago, I was working with a start-up. They had the opportunity to get to work on HoloLens and had a very specific experience in mind they wanted to bring to people. But the more we were talking, the more it seemed Mixed Reality wasn’t the tool we should use for this kind of experience, mostly because it didn’t convey that sense of immersion Virtual Reality can bring (but one day, I’m sure Mixed Reality will).

As for it, some will talk better about this than me, so just a quick reminder of what are Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality:

AR: Enhances reality by adding layering information over a direct view of actual reality or real world datas (such as navigation cues…)without physical interactions, aka Google Glass, mobile and things like Pokemon Go.

VR: Replace reality and immerse user into a virtual world. Can be stationary or room-scaled, such as HTC Vive or Oculus Rift.

MR: Call it AR++. Combines digitally-render, interactive objects with the real environment, which can be treated as real-work counterparts. It’s HoloLens and the upcoming Magic Leap.

Table of Elements: in-depth palette for composing HoloLens experiences

If you’re reading this article, you may already know what HoloLens is capable of. As for myself when I first started working on it, I do know things, but I couldn’t figure out all the options which were available to me. I was looking for a sort of table of Elements with design patterns. After many research, I tried to summarize HoloLens, but I find out that the people from 8Ninths were also working on something similar, and they brought online a « design research document, intending to serve as a dynamic foundation that will forge the first generation of HoloLens experiences ».

Following what I’ve learn from their researches, I really invite you to consult their work and blog.

I added the Mixed Reality Design Methods to their Table of Elements. Use this as a reminder so you always know the palette of options available to you and your project. On top of that, it will be very useful to share your ideas with your team, and especially with your developers.