Designing for visionOS

Original article: Designing for visionOS

TL;DR

Apple’s Vision Pro, powered by visionOS, offers a limitless virtual space for immersive and engaging experiences, smoothly transitioning between shared and full spaces for multi-tasking or focused app usage. The device blends digital and real-world surroundings through features like Passthrough and Spatial Audio. Ergonomics and Accessibility are central design considerations, ensuring comfortable, personalized user experiences that transcend physical limitations.

Bullet points

🔵 Space: Apple Vision Pro provides a limitless canvas for virtual experiences, accommodating different forms of content like windows, volumes, and 3D objects. It creates immersive experiences, transporting users to different virtual environments. Designing for this space requires an understanding of how to navigate and place content in a limitless environment.
🔄 Immersion: VisionOS apps enable users to transition fluidly between different levels of immersion. Initially, an app launches in a Shared Space where multiple apps can operate simultaneously, allowing users to manage various tasks. However, users can choose to transition an app to a Full Space, meaning it becomes the only running app, providing a more focused and immersive experience.
📹 Passthrough: Passthrough is a vital feature in visionOS. It leverages the device’s external cameras to provide a live video feed of the user’s actual surroundings, creating a blend of real and virtual environments. Users can control the level of passthrough using the Digital Crown, depending on how much of their real surroundings they wish to see.
🎧 Spatial Audio: Vision Pro’s Spatial Audio offers a multi-dimensional audio experience. It uses acoustic and visual-sensing technologies to model the sonic characteristics of a person’s surroundings, making audio sound natural and harmonious with their environment. With user permission, apps can access this information to create custom audio experiences.
👁️ Focus and Gestures: Vision Pro is designed to facilitate interaction primarily through eyes and hands. Users bring focus to a virtual object by looking at it and then activate it through an indirect gesture like a tap. Direct gestures, like physically touching a virtual object, are also supported.
💺 Ergonomics: VisionOS prioritizes user comfort. The content placement is automatically adjusted relative to the wearer’s head position, ensuring optimal visual comfort regardless of user posture. This ergonomic design encourages passive interaction, letting users engage with apps and games without unnecessary physical strain.
🔄 Accessibility: Apple Vision Pro supports numerous accessibility technologies to ensure all users can interact with the device effectively. Technologies like VoiceOver, Switch Control, Dwell Control, Guided Access, and Head Pointer enhance usability, especially for individuals with disabilities.
🎯 Best Practices: Designing for visionOS involves embracing its unique features and capabilities. App design should prioritize user comfort, support varying degrees of immersion, integrate seamless transitions between real and virtual spaces, and encourage shared activities. Every app’s design should focus on providing a seamless, engaging, and immersive experience.

Keywords

visionOS: Apple’s operating system for its Vision Pro device, which enables immersive augmented reality experiences.
Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s augmented reality headset that uses advanced technologies to create immersive experiences blending the physical and digital world.
Space: In the context of Vision Pro, this refers to the virtual canvas where users can view and interact with digital content, such as windows, volumes, and 3D objects.
Immersion: A key aspect of the Vision Pro experience, allowing users to fluidly transition between varying degrees of engagement with the virtual environment.
Shared Space: A feature of visionOS where multiple apps can run side-by-side, allowing users to multitask effectively.
Full Space: A mode in visionOS where one app dominates the user experience, offering a fully immersive interaction.
Passthrough: A feature of Vision Pro that uses the device’s external cameras to provide a live video of the user’s actual surroundings, helping to blend the virtual and real world.
Spatial Audio: A technology used in Vision Pro to model the sonic characteristics of the user’s surroundings, providing a natural sounding audio experience that complements the visual immersion.
Digital Crown: A control element on Apple’s Vision Pro, used for adjustments such as the level of passthrough.
Ergonomics: The study of people’s efficiency in their working environment. In visionOS, it refers to the design considerations to make the usage of the device comfortable and efficient.
Accessibility: The design considerations and features that ensure the device and its software can be used by as many people as possible, including those with disabilities.