VR users are giving you unprecedented control over their reality and are completely captive to the world you present them. You have an obligation to these users to present a safe and comfortable experience.
“What makes for effective virtual reality?” is a broad and contextual question. While we’ve provided you some concepts and ideas in this guide; ultimately, the right answer for your application may be entirely different. Virtual reality is still a largely uncharted medium, waiting for creative artists and developers to unlock its full potential.
VR requires new ways of thinking about space, dimension, immersion, interaction, and navigation. Screen-based media tends to emphasize right angles and forward motion as the edges of the screen are always present. This leads to what cinematographers call “framing” of shots. In VR, there is no screen, no hard physical boundaries, and nothing special about right angles. There’s nothing to frame, unless you use real-world elements like doorways and windows for the user to look through.
Of all forms of media, VR comes the closest to real world experience. Just like the physical world, it surrounds you in a completely immersive environment. You can use this to create experiences that would be impossible in any other medium. We’ve been sitting in front of flat screens facing forward for too long.
VR attempts to replicate one’s experience in the physical world; as such, users expect that they will be able to interact with that virtual world in the same ways they do outside of it. This can be a blessing and a curse: developers can use some familiar real-world mechanics, but user expectations of the virtual interactions may overreach the best practices for the medium. Balancing immersion, usability, and comfort is just one of many challenges ahead of us in VR design.
This guide was written to provide you with the most basic foundations to build an engaging and comfortable VR experience. It’s up to you to create the experiences that are going to transport users to whole new worlds—and we can’t wait for that to happen!
Be sure to visit developer.oculus.com and the Developer Blog for the latest information and discussions on designing VR content.