Moving Play Movies to VR
I joined Google in December of 2016 with relatively no VR experience. I had designed a few VR concepts and did some light consulting for an AR startup, but otherwise it was totally new to me. So I took the week before joining the team to do as much research as I could on the space.
It's important to note that before I came to the team they had just launched the v1 of the product, which can be seen in this walk through.
I reached out to other designers, played with every platform, watched a ton of movies, probably destroyed my eyes, and came up with a set of pillars I took with me to the new team:
01. Get comfy - I need to be able to get comfortable immediately. The notion of being injected in a virtual space to watch a movie is awesome, but can feel really eery really fast. So being able to position the screen to my liking adds some ownership of the space.
02. Let me try it- I felt we needed to let users try it as quickly as possible. The movie watching experience is the magical part and the more steps we add to playback, the higher the likelihood a user bounces before even experiencing the core feature.
03. Create a value prop that justifies effort- How might we optimize the content we surface? Different titles feel different in VR, so let's surface the ones that feel great. How do we illustrate that this is a better way to watch? Can we be contextually aware?
04. Don't fake reality - We're never gonna make this feel completely real, so it feels strange to try. I noticed in some apps that felt like real, detailed places, it created an uncanny valley effect. I'd notice an item I know from the real world but something would always be slightly off. I also wanted to emphasize that we avoid bringing attention to a users non existent body.
It's important to note that before I came to the team they had just launched the v1 of the product, which can be seen in this walk through.
I reached out to other designers, played with every platform, watched a ton of movies, probably destroyed my eyes, and came up with a set of pillars I took with me to the new team:
01. Get comfy - I need to be able to get comfortable immediately. The notion of being injected in a virtual space to watch a movie is awesome, but can feel really eery really fast. So being able to position the screen to my liking adds some ownership of the space.
02. Let me try it- I felt we needed to let users try it as quickly as possible. The movie watching experience is the magical part and the more steps we add to playback, the higher the likelihood a user bounces before even experiencing the core feature.
03. Create a value prop that justifies effort- How might we optimize the content we surface? Different titles feel different in VR, so let's surface the ones that feel great. How do we illustrate that this is a better way to watch? Can we be contextually aware?
04. Don't fake reality - We're never gonna make this feel completely real, so it feels strange to try. I noticed in some apps that felt like real, detailed places, it created an uncanny valley effect. I'd notice an item I know from the real world but something would always be slightly off. I also wanted to emphasize that we avoid bringing attention to a users non existent body.
The environment
One of the features I knew was necessary was a "Void Mode," which is essentially an environment that removes all complexity and allows for the only focus to be the screen. It was a staple of the competitive landscape and a heavily requested feature from my research on Reddit and various VR channels.
Another necessary feature, based on research and requests, was the ability to move and rescale the screen. Users wanted to be able to throw on the movie, lay down and place the screen exactly where they wanted. So the environment had to be both minimal and support the ability for the screen to be placed anywhere in 360 degrees of space.
Our existing playback environment was a beautiful backyard screening experience, but it had a lot of complexity that conflicted with the new product goals:
Another necessary feature, based on research and requests, was the ability to move and rescale the screen. Users wanted to be able to throw on the movie, lay down and place the screen exactly where they wanted. So the environment had to be both minimal and support the ability for the screen to be placed anywhere in 360 degrees of space.
Our existing playback environment was a beautiful backyard screening experience, but it had a lot of complexity that conflicted with the new product goals:
So the first task was to strip down the complexity and, instead of creating a void mode, making the whole experience support that feature. I worked with the existing mountain line so the environment felt consistent for existing users and redrew a simpler experience.
The goal was to create a beautiful outdoor theatre that felt comfortable and safe, but had the flexibility for screen movement. It needed to be simple, but not feel empty. I built on the existing ODS and worked with a team of incredibly talented visual artists to get feedback on my work.
The final product was something that was simple enough to not distract from the content or make the user feel like they're floating, but had enough visual elements that it could anchor the user physically in space.
The goal was to create a beautiful outdoor theatre that felt comfortable and safe, but had the flexibility for screen movement. It needed to be simple, but not feel empty. I built on the existing ODS and worked with a team of incredibly talented visual artists to get feedback on my work.
The final product was something that was simple enough to not distract from the content or make the user feel like they're floating, but had enough visual elements that it could anchor the user physically in space.
I took the concept art and worked with the Daydream team to convert it to an ODS that I could test and iterate on in Unity. I was super lucky to be able to learn Unity and the basic prototyping tools from Daydream designers, everyone was unbelievably accommodating.
The ODS basically stacks the left and right eye image so that it can be programmatically wrapped around the user's virtual world.
The ODS basically stacks the left and right eye image so that it can be programmatically wrapped around the user's virtual world.
Field of view
While I was working on the environment, I was also working along engineers to design and prototype an entirely new playback experience. The new player needed to move with the screen and support screen resizing, so it had to be redesigned from the ground up.
The first step was to understand a user's field of view and what the visual affordance was. Should the UI be in the center of the user's FOV? Should it wrap around the user?
I met with Adam Glazier, the design lead at Daydream, who mentored me through this process. He was developing a ridiculously helpful VR stickersheet, that's now publicly available here, and was able to explain a user's field of view.
Essentially there is a 60 degree FOV window for primary UI elements to live and an 120 degree window for range of motion, where secondary or peaking elements could live:
The first step was to understand a user's field of view and what the visual affordance was. Should the UI be in the center of the user's FOV? Should it wrap around the user?
I met with Adam Glazier, the design lead at Daydream, who mentored me through this process. He was developing a ridiculously helpful VR stickersheet, that's now publicly available here, and was able to explain a user's field of view.
Essentially there is a 60 degree FOV window for primary UI elements to live and an 120 degree window for range of motion, where secondary or peaking elements could live:
Player UI
The player was redesigned to hug the screen, so that it could be moved around the environment and still feel intentionally placed. In addition to the player, I designed and prototyped the scaling and repositioning screen flow. The input device is the Daydream remote, which feels very similar to using a laser point with the ability to click or swipe.
Awesome feedback
We rolled out the feature in May and received incredibly positive feedback from our community of users. I checked Reddit daily and found a few of my favorite quotes :)
"I watched a lot of 'Mad Max: Fury Road' in it yesterday, and was blown away. It's better than a TV."
"Just FYI, I don't know when the Play Movies app was updated, bit it is MUCH better now. The screen size and position are now adjustable so it even works lying down"
"Oh it's way better."
"I watched a lot of 'Mad Max: Fury Road' in it yesterday, and was blown away. It's better than a TV."
"Just FYI, I don't know when the Play Movies app was updated, bit it is MUCH better now. The screen size and position are now adjustable so it even works lying down"
"Oh it's way better."