Video playback menu design for VR

The problem:

Axon is a VR platform used by law enforcement officers for deceleration training. Law enforcement trainees are usually novice VR users, need a convenient way to view 2D videos while wearing a VR headset.

  • Currently, the trainees have to take off the headset and view the 2D videos on a PC or tablet.

  • Law Enforcement trainees are often new to VR and not completely familiar with being in a headset

  • The experience should feel like an Axon product, as well as being intuitive and easy to use for a new VR user

Solution:

  1. VR interactions

  2. UI components

  3. Environment Design

VR Interactions:

Questions I was asking myself here were:

  • What’s the most intuitive way for new users to interact with VR environment? 

  • How do different VR input methods affect the viewing experience?

  • what button do novices press first?

    I started quick-prototyping various ways of interfacing inside the virtual world.

    1. Gaze Based : Advantage: time to reflect upon your decisions. 

    Disadvantage being, not suited for our purpose. 

    Gazed input, takes a lot of time, not immediate. Time to think, tell us how you feel? A lot of head movement and neck strain.  

    2. Body Locked Menu: The advantage : very familiar interaction of interfacing with a remote and television.

    The disadvantage: user had to look away and find the right buton and in that process you created heatmap of  

    The idea of a remote sounds very appealing. This might not be the  most intuitive way for new users. You always look away from the screen to fond the right button to press. Additionally remotes work with muscle memory. 

    Thes types of menu are also used in situations where you have drag some king object into your environment. Such as furnituure. So prehaps not the best inout meothod for our purpose. 

    3. World Locked (Hand based):

    Advantage of this was it was intuitive, since hands are being used. The dpth perception is not always accurate. And you have to move a lot, I wasnt sure if the user is sitting down or standing up. I also notices that this can be very distracting. The focus was more on the hands rather than the screen.

    4. World Locked (Ray based): Advantage here is - that you dont have llok away and not distacting at all. Line of sight on the screen.

    Final menu design: Haptic feedback, as opposed to a sticky menu

UI components

Questions I was asking myself here were:

  • What are the most important UI components of a video player? 

  • What platform do users watch the most videos on?

Average age: 30-45 (data USA)

According to statista. 

 Hulu and vimeo followed at 58 and 13%

Started looking at these plateforms so that I can find out what are the most important ui components and so that they have some sort of familaiarty ti axon users?