The major topic of the meeting was developing an intuitive interaction system for authoring documents in VR/XR, focused on manipulating text elements through gestures.
Fabien Bénétou, Frode Hegland
Frode Hegland was enthusiastic about developing new interaction paradigms for document authoring in VR, specifically suggesting ways to manipulate and organize text elements in 3D space. He was particularly excited about the concept of “pulling” text elements out of documents and organizing them in space, and wanted to focus on making the experience compelling and useful rather than just technically feasible.
Fabien Bénétou took a more pragmatic approach, frequently playing “devil’s advocate” to ensure ideas would be implementable and intuitive for users. He was concerned about keeping features on-topic for their project goals, emphasizing technical feasibility and user learnability. He evolved the interaction concept into a system of “pulling through hoops” that could represent different transformations to text.
Issues Raised and Proposed Solutions:
- Issue: What should be authored in a headset versus brought in from outside Solutions: Focus on spatial arrangement and interactions unique to VR; consider semi-automatic placement that authors can refine
- Issue: Interface gestures might be too complex for users to learn Solution: Develop a “pulling through hoops” system where users pull text elements through spheres representing different transformations, creating an intuitive grammar of gestures
- Issue: How to distinguish between manipulating individual elements versus categories Solutions: Explored different release behaviors, positioning, or timing to differentiate intent
- Issue: Creating an efficient but discoverable interaction system Solution: Design interaction patterns that are composable, allowing for macro creation and reuse
Decisions:
- Adopt a “pulling through hoops” interaction system where users can pull text elements through spheres representing different transformations
- Enable composable transformations by stacking these interactions
- Reserve horizontal movement for organizing text in columns
- Allow continuous value adjustment (like font size) through rotation after pulling through appropriate hoops
- Create a system that would allow for “macros” – saved sequences of transformations
Action Items:
- Fabien to create a demo of the “pulling through hoops” interaction concept
- Record and share this development log video for reference
- Continue discussion through Slack if needed
Super early visual test build: https://companion.benetou.fr/index.html?username=ring_discovery