A NEWS FEED IN VR
ROLE : TECHNICAL DESIGNER | 2 WEEK PROTOTYPE | JULY 2016 | TEAM SIZE = 1
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OVERVIEWThe following was a 2 week prototype that I designed and implemented at Oculus, on the Gear VR. The business goal driving the feature was greater retention of users on the Gear VR platform by creating a feature that shows friend activity. Additionally the feature was also intended to monetize promoted features and products.
A parallel team goal was to also write the prototype in a manner such that the different UI elements could be reused. |
FADING PANELS
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A carousel of feed panels is presented just below the user's eye level. Each panel maps to a product display page and a cubemap which transitions as you swipe left and right on the Gear VR touchad.
Due to the tech requirement of the slider being reusable based on number of pivot points, panel elements had to be moved in code while fade animations were done in Mecanim. Managing a game object when two separate systems were controlling it was challenging. |
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SCROLLING AND SWIPING
Scrolling Text (Top)
Swiping to new PDP (Right) |
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As the finger scrolls down the touch-pad, there is some horizontal drift which could incorrectly be detected as a swipe. In order to support both simultaneously, a threshold horizontal distance is defined, exceeding which a swipe is registered.
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The scroll is updated every frame the finger stays on the touchpad, while the swipe is tested against the sensitivity threshold when the finger leaves the touchpad.
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FEED SWAP AND MONETIZATION
When the viewer sees a feed that interests him, he can tap on the touchpad and the entire panel swaps in a new panel with feeds relevant to his selection.
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Promoted feed items have a video that autoplays when the viewer gazes at the screen. When he looks away the screen slides to reveal a call to action button as well as additional information.
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