THE GOOGLE CARDBOARD EXPERIMENTS

Virtual reality was not anything unknown or un cited, un till people got hands on with Google cardboard. How did it suddenly get so popular? From school children to elderly, it is something that excites everyone.
After having spent quite some time designing interactions with small and big screens, I decided to nose around this incredibly cheap product and its penetration, find out what it means to people and what kind of virtual worlds they would like to explore with it.

WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT?

Its been almost two years since it was first unveiled and designers/developers continue to explore its possibilities. Frankly google cardboard was never intended to be sold as a finished product. It is an extremely simple, fun and inexpensive approach by google for people to experience virtual reality. It is like a cheap version of oculus rifts or samsung gears. All one needs is a VR supported smartphone and an app. Place the phone into the cardboard’s slot and you could either be looking at the Earth from space, or flying around in the skies of Pandora. One can develop and test a concept in virtual reality in probably the cheapest way through cardboard.

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE

People who have never really tried out any virtual reality headset before, are completely amazed by its experience. Cardboard is a Google initiative, and it was originally launched exclusively with Android support. I am personally more of an iOS person and and so cardboard got my attention when there were iOS apps introduced last year. There’s an ever-growing number of VR apps available right now, and as an iPhone user myself, that intrigues me if there would be VR device from Apple on the way…

So after picking up one from my workplace, I tried it first myself and a friend advised me to try out the Cardboard demo app. I didn’t want to do much research around it about how to and what to do to try it out, except for just three steps to follow-, just open the app on the phone, and place it in the cardboard and look into the device! Yes those were the only three things. The demo app itself takes you into another world altogether, many steps further from what I experienced watching 3D movies with passive glasses in theatre. Maybe because virtual reality headset completely covers yours eyes and one cannot get distracted with any other thing around him in the physical world or even things on his mind, and yes this is how I understood the meaning of the jargon- “immersive experience”.

My mind completely started to wander as to if the demo is so cool, that I am literally flying and enjoying those roller coaster rides, where else could I travel to? I ended up spending around 3 hours only checking out different types of cardboard apps and this was one of the most interesting rides back home in a bus!

HOW OTHERS LOOK AT YOU WHEN YOU ARE IN A VIRTUAL WORLD

Most of the participants of this social trial expressed discomfort with the cardboard headset. Head tilted up, and headset supported by hands all the time. While this may be due to the switch on one of the sides for interacting with it, or maybe its still heavy for our faces? Who cares because Google never intended it for a long duration use isn’t it! But if you buy one for fun, and not really for writing your own apps, you may wanna shell out more money to go for a more sophisticated one.

If you look at someone enjoying themselves on a roller coaster ride while they are sitting in a waiting lounge to catch the next flight with you, they look really funny! They are so engrossed with their mouth wide open and head taking left and right turns that will make you so inquisitive to see what they are seeing. Once I was on the verge of actually disturbing this cute guy waiting for his next turn at my dentist, to ask him if I can also see once which app was he dancing around in. Could there be a way to experience other’s experiences with certain app permissions?

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE VS SHARED EXPERIENCE

During my trials while observing people venturing into virtual reality, I realized how individual and personalized this interaction is. Smart phones although are a personal device themselves, but it still doesn’t remove the chances of the ability of another person to overlook the game you are playing or the new Rihanna video you want to watch together with your friend. I am reminded of the internet slang ‘SOS’- ‘someone over shoulder’ that we used while chatting to let the the person know that someone maybe reading our conversation. Wonder if it would remove the requirement of a virtual keyboard option on our online finance account login pages!

DOES IT STRAIN YOUR EYES?

Technically, when you look through Google cardboard, your eyes are focussing into infinity, which means they are actually far more relaxed than interactions in physical world. However people have often expressed strain with watching movies for long hours on a Google cardboard. The product is itself instructed to be used with frequent breaks on its official page along with a warning for doctor’s consultation for people prone to seizures. Well, this was also one of the frequent replies to my experiments with people when I asked them to try out different types of cardboard apps. Apps like Google Street View, Cooltour, 3D Panoramic views were far more experiential and relaxing than apps like VR Roller Coaster or VR Funfair which were more adrenaline pumping. You may not like to spend hours on a roller coaster even though it gives you a mental high but it becomes physically stressing too. Interestingly many of my friends including myself were really excited for the initial few minutes of these head turning and speed thrilling apps, but couldn’t continue for a very long time due to an “experiential mismatch” between visual motion cues and physical comfort, your eyes think you are moving, but your body does not! I could imagine what I missed ‘seeing’ when I closed my eyes when I was at Battlestar Galactica in Sentosa, Singapore.

HOW LONG CAN YOU USE CARDBOARD?

I guess there isn’t a fixed answer to how long would one like to be in a virtual world. 1. It depends on the context of the application — where has it transported you to, is it interesting enough that you would want to continue? For some people, a horror app like Insidious VR is equally engaging as peacefully exploring amazing islands of the world in high definition on VR Island HD for Google cardboard. 2. The experience has also perceived to vary with the smart phone itself. While I didn’t try many phones, but personally liked the effects and resolutions on Nexus more than on iPhone.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE WAY PEOPLE BUY THINGS TODAY

After being mesmerized by some of the really cool applications in virtual reality, I started to wonder what more can be done with it! Most of the applications I explored were either games or 3D movie viewers or simple virtual content as movies that wanders into fictional spaces or even our universe on a different planet. Then I stumbled upon Volvo Reality, first virtual test drive on smartphone! An extremely smart way to market XC90 and reach out to almost every smartphone user rather than only a handful who attend the launch event or are enthusiastic to drive up to the store for a test drive. There are many unique experiences which designers and app developers could now imagine in various scenarios, from ordering for your favourite cuisine by seeing those mouth watering dishes in 3D, to shopping online by visualizing yourself in the various outfits!

Experiencing products and environments as 3D renders with tools from Autodesk e.g. Alias, AutoCad, Showcase and many more have always been the right hand for every product designer, industrial designer and architect. Three dimensional views reveal far greater details of the product and are influential in buying decisions. An interesting opportunity is cracked in real estate area by CommonFloor — an Indian real estate portal. It allows buyers to have insights about the perspective of space and ambience of multiple properties from anywhere at any time. Of course the experience is not the same as being physically present in the environment but is surely one step closer to 3D drawings of unconstructed buildings. Interior designers can now stop pocketing money for big catalogues with fancy renders of their designs and let people imagine it for their home in virtual reality!

SO HOW CAN I DESIGN A CARDBOARD APP WITH A DEVELOPER?

After exploring such amazing experiences in VR and with decent skills of 3D modeling and visualizations, I began to research around how and what tools I need to get started with my designs. Google guides us with an interesting cardboard app- Cardboard Design Lab to educate us with VR principles. I would certainly recommend a tour of it to understand the ergonomics of designing for an infinite canvas.

There are some best practices and physiological considerations for designing for VR. For example, in a typical VR app you’ll need to account for head tracking; when the user looks through the viewer and move their head, the sensors in the phone are programmed to respond to the UI and user sees another view. Now the developer ensures that there isn’t any lag or lack of tracking, because if that happens, the user could experience a sensation of imbalance or even nausea. It is suggested to fade the screen during these transitions to avoid loss of head tracking. Users should be made to feel in control of the app, take decisions and head to whichever direction he intends to keeping in mind that these slight physical movements are actually controlling his visual motion.

Virtual reality is here to stay, it just started to roll eyeballs around for people. When we will have more sophisticated head mounts with high definition content and faster refresh rates, that matches our persistence of vision, it will become far more experiential, accessible and affordable as other smart gadgets like smartphones, smart TV’s are.