Introducing the new WITHIN website. February 2018.

The web is a great place for new and veteran VR users to discover, explore, and experience VR — as well as access pertinent information about that content. With this in mind, we set out to redesign the WITHIN site from the ground up — to make compelling VR experiences as accessible as possible. In this post, we’ll cover a couple of the design changes we made, and why we believe they help push WebVR and the industry forward.

The first feature update lives on the homepage. It’s what we call our “Carousel” — a collection of experiences displayed in horizontal slides and defined by taxonomy (genre, series, platform, owner, etc.). It is responsive by design, offering a clear glimpse into what a specific experience is without having to jump into it. When all of our collections are laid out, the programming becomes the showcase, highlighting the diversity of our catalog. Here, users can view all of the experiences available to them, without having to dig through a library.

A Series of Carousel Components on a Desktop Browser. February 2018.

The next major redesign of the site is the individual experience pages. Instead of generating a new page for each film, there is now one “Watch” component. The component handles a varied set of information associated with each piece. Like the Carousel component, the Watch component is responsive to not just screen size, but also to how much data is available to the user. (Our analytics also note the capabilities of the visiting device, helping us get a more full picture of the real user landscape.)

Above is a side-by-side comparison of two different experiences on our site. In addition to information previously displayed like the title, rating, and running time, THE POSSIBLE: “Hoverboard” (left) shows additional episodes in the series and a festival laurel for having screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. Similarly, LIFE OF US (right) features expanded credits and the events where it’s being shown (since it is currently under limited release).

Both pages show which platforms you can experience a piece on. THE POSSIBLE is a 360° video and available on all of our platforms, whereas LIFE OF US is highly interactive — available only to 6 degrees-of-freedom VR headsets. In many cases this page offers access to the experience, and in other cases provides a trailer. In every case the Watch component acts as a résumé for an experience.

Revamped “How to Watch VR” Page. January 2018.

Offering comprehensive information about a specific experience is one way the site helps ease people into VR. Another way is our revamped guide: How to Watch VR. It offers an overview of the changing landscape of immersive storytelling. It also explains the best way to watch WITHIN’s experiences based on the equipment you have. Lastly, the experiences you can watch on the web — regardless of the setup — help teach audiences what to expect in dedicated immersive setups (like headsets).

Developing the above-the-fold 3D grid of Experience Thumbnails. December 2017.

Beyond the immediate needs serviced in this redesign, the last five months of development have been a period of reflection. The original site was a collection of static HTML templates. This supported WITHIN’s portfolio as it grew from a handful of films to a couple of dozen.

Our new site is a single-page web application built with Vue.js, leveraging many of its auxiliary components and templating libraries. The site can scale from around fifty experiences today, to hundreds moving forward.

We’re proud to share the new site with you; and to make the most compelling VR experiences accessible to as many people as possible.

Jono Brandel

Web Product Lead

WITHIN