My Virtual Reality Design Process

by Rafael Kino

Having a structured Design process is particularly useful when you're trying something new and risky. Since new and risky means everything in VR right now, I find helpful to keep to a strong Design framework when I work. My two main design tenets are simple:

  • Instead of assuming you have the solution, test key assumptions by making prototypes.

  • Instead of deciding on one idea right from the start, manage a portfolio of ideas and test until you find the right one.

The first thing I do in any design process is a meeting with the stakeholders. Anyone who has a say in getting the project approved is a key stakeholder. This first meeting defines:

“What is?”

  • What is the opportunity?
  • Who is the audience?
  • What does the experience have to include to be considered a success ?

    The answers to this last question are called the Features for Success, and they should be 4-6 words.

Say, for example, Fashion Company A wants to make a VR experience. The answers might be:

The Opportunity:
Get people enthusiastic about a new fashion line

Target Audience:
Millenials

Features for Sucess:
Beautiful
Exciting
Innovative
Fun
Focused on the Clothes

It’s important to define the opportunity very clearly before starting production, so it might take more than one meeting until we get it just right. Only after the opportunity is clearly defined do we ask:

“What if?”

This is the brainstorm and discovery phase. We are asking ourselves “What if we could do anything?” Working with the team and stakeholders we want to think expansively. To quote Jeanne Liedtka:

If we start by defining limitations, all solutions will only look like the past. It’s only when we open our minds that we can define new and innovative solutions to the problem.

At the end of each brainstorming session we check our ideas against our features for success. Even though we've brainstormed pretty freely, we want to look at each idea one by one and check them agaisnt the Features for Sucess.

Going back to Fashion Company A, we might have some ideas that are innovative, but don't sound like that much fun. Or we might exciting ideas that won't look that beautiful in the end. We whittle them down until we find the right 2 or 3 ideas we can prototype quickly, and we get stakeholder approval. After the ideas that are meant to go forward have been selected by the stakeholders, we move onto:

Prototype and testing

Discovery Sprints

The most important thing to do in Discovery is to prototype Key Features.

We might think that making let's say, a Digital Magic Mirror AR game will be Fun, Beautiful and Exciting, but when we look into the tech stack, it just doesn't work the way we thought it would.

In the brainstorming phase, we made assumptions on how certain features and mechanics would feel and by prototyping we test them in the real world. We are looking to hit the sweet spot between desirability and feasibility. This is where having a portfolio of ideas pays off if any idea feels like a dead end, we move on to the next one.

At the end of each Discovery sprint, stakeholders are invited to give their own feedback and the decision is made whether any one of the prototypes go forward. If none, Discovery loops back to the beggining. We either get new ideas out of what we've learnt or we select new ideas out of the portfolio of ideas we have.

When key features and assumptions match, we check them agaisnt our Features for Sucess. If everything is looking good we move to the next phase, Design Sprints.

Sprints 1-3: Design Sprints

Now we deal with Art Direction, Story and/or UX Design. When everything is lined up, we move onto the next phase.

Sprints 3-8: Development Sprints

Features get implemented and Art is finalized. Any adjustments are made through a Agile Design process. In the final sprints UX testing starts, each sprint week having 4 days of production, 1 day of user testing and 1 day reflection.

This is a very accelerated design process. It's meant to serve its purpose in the advertising industry, where deadlines are short and expectations are high.

Why Agile Design?

I can't think of a single great software application or game that was made in any other way but Agile or Agile-inspired frameworks. A few links to get you started:

Thoughtbot's Agile Design Playbook which is based off the book Sprint by Google Ventures

This talk from one the developers of Guns of Icarus opened my eyes to use of Agile in Game Development.

Real-Life UX Design Processes from UXpin, particularly the bit about Slack, gave me some perspective on how Agile can scale.

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