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Designing the User Experience for WebAR, with Google's Interaction Developer Austin McCasland
How an end user experiences a new
mode of technology is almost as important -- if not more -- than how
the tech works on the inside. Because, let's face it; it could be an
amazing bit of code, but if the human mind does not find it simple or
easy to use, it's a non-starter. Austin McCasland is a UX prototyper
working with Google, and he and Alan chat about the finer points of
UX design for AR.
Alan: Today's guest is Austin
McCasland, a designer and developer in immersive computing. Austin
has written multiple courses across VR and AR design and development.
He's designed and developed Paint Space AR, named by Apple as one of
the best apps of 2017 and currently works full time at Google as an
AR Interaction designer. Austin employs a user-first synthesis of
technical understanding and UX design to create effective and useful
products in emerging technology. I'm really, really excited to
welcome Austin to the show. Austin, welcome to the XR for Business
Podcast.
Austin: Thank you for having me,
excited to be here.
Alan: If you're looking to learn
more about Austin, you can visit his website at austastic.com. Let's
dive right in; you work at Google as a UX designer -- user
experience, for those who don't know -- walk us through what you do
on a daily basis.
Austin: I'm a UX designer, and I
do a lot of prototyping. Basically what I do is, I think about
software problems from a user-first perspective. Thinking about what
are things that people are doing that they need solved -- or what are
things that they're doing that they could do better with technology,
whether it's a standard app, or with AR/VR – and then I basically
go through a process of iteration to come up with features for
products. And specifically, in my current role, I'm on a prototyping
team that looks at how we can leverage spatial computing across all
these different types of use cases. So, I see a range of use cases,
and explore what's possible from a product perspective.
Alan: So, what are some of the
use cases that you're seeing in your day-to-day business that you're
prone to working on? Or what you're really attracted to? What are
some of the best use cases so far?
Austin: The things that I look
out for when there's a use case that could be particularly
well-suited -- and I'll speak mostly to AR here, although I can also
speak to VR -- but in AR, when there is a problem that's already
spatial in nature, it's usually a pretty good indicator. You'll see
this with try-on apps where -- and I use this term more broadly to
also describe apps like IKEA and stuff -- let's say there's this
problem of, “I need to see what something looks like in my space.”
AR is really well-suited to help with those types of problems. Or,
“what does something look like on me, in physical space?” Now,
those aren't the only things. But any time that your users are doing
something out in the real world, or they need information about how
something would be in the real world, that's usually a pretty strong
signal that you can lean into AR to provide some value there.
Alan: Let's give an example. You
mentioned IKEA, and what they're doing with their Place app. What
they basically allow you to do is take your phone, put a digital
piece of furniture in the exact size [you want], so you can see what
your couch is going to look like. But this kind of transcends all
types of visualizations. For example, I saw one where Coke did a
visualizer to show retailers what the new Coke machine would look
like in their stores. And it's not just sending them a photo and
marking it up. It's real-time, and that's -- I think -- a really
powerful tool for sales.
Austin: Yeah, especially because
one of the key differences between what would be a standard
documentation -- like in tha
View all episodes
By Alan Smithson from MetaVRse
4.5
1212 ratings
How an end user experiences a new
mode of technology is almost as important -- if not more -- than how
the tech works on the inside. Because, let's face it; it could be an
amazing bit of code, but if the human mind does not find it simple or
easy to use, it's a non-starter. Austin McCasland is a UX prototyper
working with Google, and he and Alan chat about the finer points of
UX design for AR.
Alan: Today's guest is Austin
McCasland, a designer and developer in immersive computing. Austin
has written multiple courses across VR and AR design and development.
He's designed and developed Paint Space AR, named by Apple as one of
the best apps of 2017 and currently works full time at Google as an
AR Interaction designer. Austin employs a user-first synthesis of
technical understanding and UX design to create effective and useful
products in emerging technology. I'm really, really excited to
welcome Austin to the show. Austin, welcome to the XR for Business
Podcast.
Austin: Thank you for having me,
excited to be here.
Alan: If you're looking to learn
more about Austin, you can visit his website at austastic.com. Let's
dive right in; you work at Google as a UX designer -- user
experience, for those who don't know -- walk us through what you do
on a daily basis.
Austin: I'm a UX designer, and I
do a lot of prototyping. Basically what I do is, I think about
software problems from a user-first perspective. Thinking about what
are things that people are doing that they need solved -- or what are
things that they're doing that they could do better with technology,
whether it's a standard app, or with AR/VR – and then I basically
go through a process of iteration to come up with features for
products. And specifically, in my current role, I'm on a prototyping
team that looks at how we can leverage spatial computing across all
these different types of use cases. So, I see a range of use cases,
and explore what's possible from a product perspective.
Alan: So, what are some of the
use cases that you're seeing in your day-to-day business that you're
prone to working on? Or what you're really attracted to? What are
some of the best use cases so far?
Austin: The things that I look
out for when there's a use case that could be particularly
well-suited -- and I'll speak mostly to AR here, although I can also
speak to VR -- but in AR, when there is a problem that's already
spatial in nature, it's usually a pretty good indicator. You'll see
this with try-on apps where -- and I use this term more broadly to
also describe apps like IKEA and stuff -- let's say there's this
problem of, “I need to see what something looks like in my space.”
AR is really well-suited to help with those types of problems. Or,
“what does something look like on me, in physical space?” Now,
those aren't the only things. But any time that your users are doing
something out in the real world, or they need information about how
something would be in the real world, that's usually a pretty strong
signal that you can lean into AR to provide some value there.
Alan: Let's give an example. You
mentioned IKEA, and what they're doing with their Place app. What
they basically allow you to do is take your phone, put a digital
piece of furniture in the exact size [you want], so you can see what
your couch is going to look like. But this kind of transcends all
types of visualizations. For example, I saw one where Coke did a
visualizer to show retailers what the new Coke machine would look
like in their stores. And it's not just sending them a photo and
marking it up. It's real-time, and that's -- I think -- a really
powerful tool for sales.
Austin: Yeah, especially because
one of the key differences between what would be a standard
documentation -- like in tha