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What I Learned Designing My First AR App

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Learning How to Edit 3D Models

The interactions in our demo were fairly simple — we needed to expand pieces of a 3D model and rotate them. Instead of focusing on designing stellar interactions, I prioritized finding and editing a detailed model of phone hardware to highlight the potential of AR to see what’s under the hood of a machine. Since none of the 3D prototyping tools had an existing model of phone hardware, I searched sites like CGTrader to purchase a 3D model.

After testing the model in the app, it was clear the model needed editing. Some parts had colors or textures that weren’t visible in ARKit. In addition, I had to group the parts to allow users to select different pieces of the model. There are many options for editing 3D models, including Autodesk 3DS and SketchUp. I used Autodesk Maya, mostly because I had the easiest time opening my files in Maya.

Maya is traditionally used for making and animating 3D models. It provided a lot of flexibility, despite being complicated to learn. Relying on Autodesk YouTube videos, figuring out how to edit an object in Maya was by far the most difficult part of the process for me. Between the unfamiliar software and foreign file types, it took a lot of back and forth with my developer to understand the best ways to utilize Maya. There were times when I thought I had fixed a problem, only to realize I saved it incorrectly or moved a part to make the whole model completely unusable in ARKit.

A screenshot in Maya with annotations for the features I used frequently: selecting an object, grouping objects, rotating objects, and changing their color and texture.

As with any design project, communication was the most important part of the project. The top 3 conversations my team discussed to keep the project progressing smoothly from the design side were:

  1. What happens once I move my phone? Just as with any design project, most of my focus was making sure my team had good communication about what we envisioned in the product. The biggest way these conversations differed from most projects was ensuring we were all on the same page about what happened when things moved in 3D space. Here’s where pen and paper and Keynote went a long way with aligning my team.
  2. What assets do you need? Where are you at now? These questions were another way of getting on the same page as my developer and allowed me to understand what the biggest gaps were that I needed to fill in. These questions made me realize that focusing on an accurate, usable model would be more helpful than building out every interaction in an AR prototyping tool.
  3. What file types can you use? Are you able to open this new file? This question was a lifesaver when it came to figuring out what problems I ran into when learning Maya. Making sure the new file worked well was also critical, because it would often alert me of a new issue in the file I wasn’t aware of before. Because the developer and I were working with the models in different software, I had to ensure that whatever he was seeing matched what I saw.

These questions allowed me to continue making progress as he figured out to recognize an object in AR Kit, which also was not an easy task.

In mobile design, you have to understand a person’s surroundings to create a great experience. This is so much more true for AR experiences, where the surrounding becomes a part of the app. AR has the potential to truly push boundaries of how apps can take advantage of their contexts and keep users focused on their surroundings.

However, to get to that point, new skill sets must be added to the field of experience design. Low fidelity prototype will include a whole new set of methods to learn about 3D space. 3D modeling will start showing up on some UX job descriptions. And I’m excited to see where these skill sets take the world of experience design in AR.

Screen shot of our 3D model in app

Source: https://arvrjourney.com/what-i-learned-designing-my-first-ar-app-85a58dfa1b16?source=rss—-d01820283d6d—4

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