Extending Reality: How to Design for the Metaverse

Extended Reality (VR, AR, MR, collectively XR) promises to change, or possibly replace, the world around us, immersing us in a different “”here and now”, be it a company-controlled Metaverse, a remote location on Earth, a fictional world, or a different, augmented version of our home or of familiar places such as our workplace or our favorite supermarket.

But XR “elsewheres” are unique blends of digital and physical that introduce novel challenges and opportunities for designers, and that require knowledge and skills traditionally not associated with digital design practices. What happens when information is not conveniently bound to the 2D space of a screen but is instead disseminated and embedded into a 3D space? What if information IS what constitutes the 3D space? Where should we start?

This learn-by-doing workshop will teach attendees the basics of designing for XR environments: it first introduces the basic differences between traditional IA / UX practice and IA / UX for XR; it anchors those differences to embodiment, sense of presence, and sensory and proprioceptive input; it describes how some of the issues we have with XR design are old issues we have solved, contextually, in other mediums, such as film or video games; it provides an initial set of best practices that can be applied to the high-level design of XR environments; it presents a few techniques to low-fi prototype XR solutions using pen, paper, and a smartphone.

Pointers and references to in-depth exploration of the XR design space will be provided during the workshop.