Creating the Virtual Realm: A guide to designing virtual reality experiences – part one
Virtual reality (VR) has exploded into our consciousness during the last year or so with the release of the Oculus Rift headset (albeit in prototype form). The use of the headset has encouraged the world to see VR as either a gadget or a new device. It is neither.
VR is an entirely new medium that promises to be every bit as transformative as the introduction of the ‘talkies’ in the 1920s or the smartphone in the mid-2000s. It is a medium that brings with it entirely new conventions, new forms of interaction, and new ways to explore and experience the world.
Oculus Rift's new headset
The incredible buzz created by the explosive launch of the Oculus Rift through Kickstarter, its acquisition by Facebook and collaboration with Samsung – resulting in the Samsung Gear VR – has inevitably brought others to the table. Google Cardboard and the Sony Morpheus project are but two of many movers into VR through hardware, software or film production, and we can expect many more in the coming months.
The realm of VR poses an entirely new set of challenges to those who seek to enter it. To add value through VR, rather than merely deliver VR content for its own sake, we must deliver content that makes this new medium indispensable. The elements that make up a VR experience must be fully understood, so we do not recreate content that exists elsewhere, and already served by media such as television, web platforms or even smartphones.
AKQA's Nissan IDx experience
One crucial element of VR is the emotional connection it creates between content and audience. Users of the Nissan IDx experience developed by AKQA for the Tokyo Motor Show did not speak about what they saw or what they did, but of how they felt. Long after the ‘wow factor’ of being in a virtual world has become no more than a novelty, it is this direct emotional connection that will set good and well-designed immersive VR experiences apart from poorly conceived ones, or experiences in other media.
This brings us to a pivotal ingredient of VR: the story. Relevant and purposeful VR experiences require a compelling narrative that will resonate with its audience at this emotional level.
AKQA's Nissan iDX experience
For the Nissan IDx experience, we discovered we needed to dispense with our usual processes of design and production. We had to learn how to deal with the challenges of UX, balance the desire for exploration with the need to move forward through the narrative, and build a team of different disciplines who could work together.
Only then could we deliver to our audience and our clients a memorable, valuable and transformative VR experience.
In the following articles in this series, we will explore ten key considerations, and guide you through the process of creating a VR experience to help you to exploit the medium to its full.
Andy Hood is head of emerging technologies and Resh Sidhu is creative director, both at AKQA
Content created with:
AKQA
Find out more