How to Design for Augmented and Virtual Reality

Suited For: Intermediate to Advanced
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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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Earn Industry-Recognized Certificates

Industry giants trust our courses to train their teams, and prestigious universities integrate our content into their curricula. Add your certificates to your LinkedIn profile, résumé, and job applications.

Our clients: IBM, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, NASA, Adobe, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, LinkedIn
Course Certificate Example

Is This Course Right for You?

  • You want an evidence-based curriculum taught by industry leaders.
  • You want real-world design skills that translate directly into professional practice.
  • You want to earn industry-recognized credentials.
  • Your time is too valuable for scattered free content with no structure.
  • You want learning that leads to better roles and stronger earning potential over time.
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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

How It Works

  1. Build High-Impact AI and Design Skills

    Industry leaders from companies like Adobe, Google, and NASA teach you real-world skills grounded in industry practice and research.

  2. Combine AI and Timeless Design Skills

    Learn both AI and the human-centered design skills that AI can't replace.

  3. Earn Industry-Recognized Certificates

    Add IxDF Course Certificates to your LinkedIn profile and résumé to show you've completed an evidence-based curriculum taught by industry leaders.

  4. Turn Your Skills Into Career Opportunities

    Use your new skills to take on higher-value work, qualify for promotions or find a role that fits you better.

  5. Build a Network That Supports Your Career

    Connect with designers in 497 cities across 107 countries. Learn together, get mentored, and build relationships that open doors.

Course Overview

  • Each week, one lesson becomes available.
  • Study flexibly. Take as much time as you want.

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 1 hour, 32 mins.

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

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 5 hours.

Lesson 2: Getting familiar with 3D UIs

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

Lesson 3: Designing 3D Story Flow

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

Lesson 4: How to Wireframe 3D Interactions

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

Lesson 5: Social VR and Collaborative Virtual Environments

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

Lesson 6: Bringing It All Together

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

Lesson 7: Validating Your 3D Experience

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

Lesson 8: IxDF Course Certificate and Course Wrap-up

To be scheduled. Estimated time to complete: 13 mins.

What's Inside IxDF Membership?

  • High-impact design and AI skills

  • Learn from 211 industry leaders

  • 42 evidence-based courses

  • 162 one-hour Master Classes

  • Industry-recognized certificates

  • $2,189 worth of toolkits

  • 9,988 active design jobs

  • 10 structured career programs

  • Global community in 497 cities

  • $6,649 worth of premium tools

  • 276 ready-made templates

  • and much more

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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.