How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality

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What You’ll Learn

  • How to design for AR and VR from novel and unique perspectives
  • The three keys to designing for this new medium: Storytelling, Imagineering, and Improvisation
  • How to enhance immersion in order to improve your users’ experience
  • How to create 3D personas to improve spatial navigation, layout, and content
  • How to incorporate the brain’s responses to 3D interfaces by taking visual, auditory, and kinesthetic interactions into account
  • Practical tips to avoid known UX problems when designing for AR and VR

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are quickly becoming huge areas of technology, with giants like Apple, Microsoft and Google competing to provide the next big AR or VR experience. Statista predicts that the worldwide user base for AR and VR will reach 443 million by 2025, meaning that it is becoming increasingly important for UX designers to know how to create amazing VR and AR experiences. Designing for 3D experiences will require completely new ways of thinking about UX design—and the question is, are you well equipped to tackle this new field of design?

The good news is that while AR and VR hardware and software is changing dramatically, UX principles and techniques for 3D interaction design will remain consistent. It’s just that new opportunities and sensitivities will present themselves to designers and developers. This course will give you the 3D UX skills to remain relevant in the next decade and beyond. You’ll be able to create immersive experiences that tap into the novel opportunities that AR and VR generate. For example, you will need to bring together key UX concepts such as emotional design, social UX, and gamification in order to create an immersive AR or VR creation.

AR and VR need to be easy to use in order to provide users with experiences that wow. Avoiding common usability mistakes and applying the principles of storytelling will help you carefully craft 3D experiences that delight, intrigue, amuse, and most of all evoke the response you intended. You’ll need to engage users in first-person narratives by making use of spatially dynamic UI’s, including gaze, gesture, movement, speech, and sound—often used in combination.

During the course, you will come across many examples and case studies from spatial and holographic interface designers. You will master how to create immersive 3D content for AR and VR that provides rich user experiences. The course offers exercises and challenges throughout, all aimed at helping you and/or your team practice your emerging or existing AR/VR skills. You will be taught by Frank Spillers, who is a distinguished speaker, author, and internationally respected senior usability practitioner with over 15 years of experience in the field.

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Is This Course Right for You?

  • You want to land a job in design – or get a promotion.
  • You want to learn real-world design skills that are valuable in any job and any industry.
  • You want timeless human-centered skills AI cannot replace and turn AI into your superpower.
  • You're tired of wasting time on influencers and want to learn from real experts.
  • You want actual career outcomes, like increasing your salary potential and job opportunities.
Explore Course Content

Loved by People Around the World

View full testimonial from Laura Gieco
Laura Gieco
Laura Gieco
UX Design

The course was a great introduction for me to the world of VR/AR. The instructor is very engaging, knowledgeable and gives lots of examples...

IxDF Course Certificate awarded to Laura Gieco for completing the "How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality" course
View full testimonial from daksh sahni
daksh sahni
daksh sahni
technical art director - VR

Loved the multi modal teaching method—video, exercises and assignments. The community in the course was also very strong and everyone contri...

IxDF Course Certificate awarded to daksh sahni for completing the "How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality" course
View full testimonial from Björn Rohles
Björn Rohles
Björn Rohles
Postdoctoral researcher

Frank Spillers has a very engaging teaching style and profound knowledge. It is always a pleasure to listen to him discuss the course topics...

IxDF Course Certificate awarded to Björn Rohles for completing the "How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality" course

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Course Overview:

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • Study flexibly. Take as much time as you want.
  • 32h, 6m over 7 weeks (est.).

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour, 43 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 0.1 An Introduction to Courses from IxDF (33 mins)
  • Multimedia lesson: E.g. templates, animations, illustrations, graphs, and text. 0.2 Get Help, Career Advice, and Job Opportunities (6 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 0.3 How to Get Your Course Certificate (19 mins)
  • Community-based learning and networking. 0.4 Grow Your Global Network and Build Your Brand (12 mins)

Lesson 1: Getting in the Space (3D UX)

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours, 0 mins.

  • Multimedia lesson: E.g. templates, animations, illustrations, graphs, and text. 1.1 Welcome to How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality (10 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 1.2 Imagination Is What It's All About (12 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 1.3 The Challenge for 3D Interaction Design (16 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 1.4 AR/VR/MR Distinctions (44 mins)

Lesson 2: Getting familiar with 3D UIs

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours, 33 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 2.1 Specifying Your Experience Design Plan (30 mins)
  • Community-based learning and networking. 2.2 Discussion Exercise (7 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 2.3 The Reality of Your User's Brain in 3D (38 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 2.4 The Reality of Your User's Brain in 3D: Gaze and Gesture (32 mins)

Lesson 3: Designing 3D Story Flow

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 4 hours, 14 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 3.1 Storytelling in VR and MR: 7 Essential Musts (46 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 3.2 Exercise (33 mins)
  • Community-based learning and networking. 3.3 Discussion Exercise (6 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 3.4 Use Narrative Essentials (50 mins)

Lesson 4: How to Wireframe 3D Interactions

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours, 31 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 4.1 Developing Your Interaction Models for VR, MR, AR (53 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 4.2 Holographic Interface Storyboarding Techniques (1 hour, 5 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 4.3 Wireframe Example: The Document Reviewer (11 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 4.4 Wireframing Immersive Interactions (1 hour, 53 mins)

Lesson 5: Social VR and Collaborative Virtual Environments

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 2 hours, 56 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 5.1 5 Important Social UI Characteristics (46 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 5.2 Communication, Coordination and Collaboration (43 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 5.3 3 Tips for Better Social UX (49 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 5.4 Social VR: Facebook Case Study (35 mins)

Lesson 6: Bringing It All Together

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 7 hours, 37 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 6.1 Designing Your 3D Experience (2 hours, 3 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 6.2 Defining Spatial Interactions (1 hour, 23 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 6.3 Spatial UI Considerations (55 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 6.4 3D Navigation (49 mins)

Lesson 7: Validating Your 3D Experience

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 3 hours, 17 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 7.1 Evaluating Your Design (41 mins)
  • Community-based learning and networking. 7.2 Discussion Exercise (7 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 7.3 Measuring Presence (1 hour, 8 mins)
  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 7.4 Tools for Evaluating VR/AR Experience (32 mins)

Lesson 8: IxDF Course Certificate and Course Wrap-up

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 12 mins.

  • In-depth video lesson with experts, animations and templates. 8.1 How to Add Your IxDF Certificate to LinkedIn (6 mins)
  • Multimedia lesson: E.g. templates, animations, illustrations, graphs, and text. 8.2 Help Us Help You: Course Evaluation (4 mins)
  • Multimedia lesson: E.g. templates, animations, illustrations, graphs, and text. 8.3 Six Steps to Your Career Success (3 mins)
  • Multimedia lesson: E.g. templates, animations, illustrations, graphs, and text. 8.4 Get Your IxDF Course Certificate (2 mins)

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Laura Gieco
Laura Gieco
UX Design

The course was a great introduction for me to the world of VR/AR. The instructor is very engaging, knowledgeable and gives lots of examples from the real world and his own experience. I also enjoyed doing the in class exercises and little challenges. Definitely helped me to learn how to think when designing VR/AR.

daksh sahni
daksh sahni
technical art director - VR

Loved the multi modal teaching method—video, exercises and assignments. The community in the course was also very strong and everyone contributed a lot—I learnt a lot from other peers as well. The instructor is very effective, knowledgable and really hit on the topics that I needed to learn in this course! In fact, I have been interviewing and some of the answers to the questions the hiring managers asked me came from what I learnt in this course.

Björn Rohles
Björn Rohles
Postdoctoral researcher

Frank Spillers has a very engaging teaching style and profound knowledge. It is always a pleasure to listen to him discuss the course topics. In this one, there were a lot of brilliant examples from different fields (e.g., games, holograms, business contexts, accessibility…), which made it easy to follow the course even without much experience in XR.