Welcome to Designing New Realities, a podcast series exploring the experience side of XR experiences. Why do we need such a specific topic? From our perspective it’s actually not so specific. Depending on your perspective, because of your unique point of view, your experience in an XR application can be vastly different than anyone else’s. And, while the complexity that comes along with adding a third dimension to a solution or application is exciting and inspiring to our creative minds, it wreaks havoc when trying to produce something that can appeal to a mass audience.

Since the dawn of time, mass dissemination of information has been shared via 2D interfaces – from cave paintings telling the story of the animals we hunted to stone tablets giving us rules for life… to books to newspapers to websites to smartphones. And, over time, intuitive standards and best practices have evolved, which help condition and align audience expectations, ultimately making the information easily digestible, usable. Not so just yet within the 3D/Spatial world. Sure, we can borrow from principles 2D design has developed, but like a Square stuck in Flatland, we don’t know what we don’t know.

Now, with cloud computing, always-connected ubiquitous devices, the tech is stable, capable and scalable – ready for mass adoption… the last hurdle? Usability. The value pulsing through XR solutions is exponential because where 2D info is locked in box, accessible only when we go to it, XR solutions manifest all around us – something we experience. As industry journalist and this series’ inaugural guest Jesse Damiani notes:

“XR opens us up to the full 3D reality of the digital world, which we’ll interact with using our whole bodies—marking the single biggest growth opportunity in the history of design.”

With that, to come full circle, and turn that circle into a sphere, each episode this series will wax philosophy with a guest expert, discuss and dissect the magical, practical and tactical XR examples out there today, and hone in what makes a solution usable. So, join us on this journey as we break through space and experience the Th3rd Dimension…