Virtual reality: VR won’t kill UI design, AR will

Sam Applebee, Co-founder — Kickpush

Kickpush is a product design studio in London founded in 2014 by Alex Deruette and Sam Applebee.

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In January we set out to investigate virtual and augmented reality from the perspective of User Interface design. These emerging technologies will bring monumental changes to digital product design; that much is certain. What’s less clear is the part that UI designers will play in its evolution, and it looks like we’re underprepared.

In this article we’ll lay out our forecast for the future and make the case for digital designers to engage with this exciting new frontier of design. We’ve conducted some experiments of our own, and every day next week we’ll reveal some more of the results on our Dribbble page.

Fantasy is becoming reality

When the holodeck made its Star Trek TV debut in 1987 viewers watched avidly as the crew used the infinitely programmable room for research — and sometimes for recreation… ‘Is that a phaser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’

‘Is that a phaser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’

The idea of stepping into another world at will captivated the imagination of a generation, but only in the past few years have those dreams of living inside of our creations begun to come to fruition.

Now, as we all know, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive got the idea for the iPad from Star Trek (cue internet rage). It’s curious to wonder whether Facebook’s acquisition of VR leader Oculus was partly driven by boyhood desires of Mark Zuckerberg. Now at the helm of a multi-billion dollar company, why not make some childhood fantasies come true?

Tech giants HTC, Sony, Microsoft and Facebook have all made forays into VR hardware. So far the price tags, ranging from $500–3000, have largely constrained their popularity to gamers looking for a more immersive experience.

As an amateur you can transform your smartphone into an affordable VR headset for as little as $15. ‘I’ve tried Google Cardboard and it was rubbish’ you say? Well yes, it is a bit rubbish for now. But this is just the beginning.

Interface design must evolve

The future looks… sexy. Never ones to miss out on a trend, the ubiquitous PornHub launched a virtual reality section on their website. They must have jumped the gun when we said we were running some ‘VR experiments’.

It’s no secret that the porn industry has a track record of accelerating early stage technologies. You can thank porn companies for online payment systems and video streaming, along with a whole host of media capture and playback devices and software. Eventually the rest of the world comes up with other more friendly applications.

So, presuming that humanity’s insatiable desire for nakedness will continue to drive progress in VR technology, there are three other important trends that together spell the end of UI design as it exists today.

Trends toward User Integrated Interfaces

Device convergence : The distinction between devices is becoming less clear. At the end of the day all of our smartphones, laptops, tablets, phablets and smartwatches are an interface, inputs and outputs. The gaps between them are getting smaller and have perhaps already disappeared. App agnosticism : The flip-side of device convergence — Apps are less frequently constrained to certain platforms or devices. Apps are tools, and the best tools to perform the same function regardless of the situation. That’s why trumpdonald.org has a mobile version. Human / computer integration : We’re increasingly willing to let technology into our lives, and trust it in ever more personal ways: Collecting data, analysing our actions, making suggestions and shaping our decisions. Though implants haven’t really caught on yet, wearable adoption is growing at pace.

A screen is just a medium for an interface, and we expect our apps to work irrespective of whether we’re actively using them. So that begs the question: Do we even need screens at all?

“That begs the question: Do we even need screens at all?”

Obviously yes for now. But for how long?