Replicating the Illusion

For this week in Des 241: Mixed Realities, we further continued our learning from last week about the technology needed to create a virtual experience, introducing the prototyping phase and the design process behind the producing a virtual experience.

Billinghurst identifies the key technologies needed for a Mixed Reality System is:

• Visual Display - Visual stimulus

• Audio/Tactile Display - Verbal stimulus

• Tracking - Changing the user's point of view

• Input Devices - Enabling interaction with the user

As for prototyping, Billinghurst introduced Tom Chi's prototyping rules:

1. Find the quickest path to experience

2. Doing is the best kind of thinking

3. Use materials that move at the speed of thought to maximize your rate of learning

He also emphasized on the typical development steps in the design/prototyping process:

• Sketching

• Storyboards

• UI Mockups

• Interaction Flows

• Video Prototypes

• Interactive Prototypes

• Final Native Application

In conclusion, this lecture was an information overload and it reminded me of how much effort goes into designing something in general. I chose to blog about this as I think that I'll need to look back on this for future reference.

#MixedRealities

Billinghurst, M. (2020). Prototyping Mixed Reality [PowerPoint Slides]. Canvas. https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/45453/files/5282761?module_item_id=951981