Pinch VR Operating System UX/UI Mockup & Simulation

We followed a key principle from VR UX research and focused on extending traditional interfaces to take maximum advantage of the 3rd dimension creating what we call ‘Interface Environments’ as opposed to the dichotomy of Interface / Environment thesis that has dominated VR UX strategy. These ‘Interface Environments’ would allow for much more complex navigation systems that take advantage of physiological norms hardwired in human behavior.

The vision was to extend the traditional mobile interface beyond the limitations of the screen, and allow for a truly immersive experience in daily consumer computing. The main user interface would be a desktop-inspired home screen allowing users to navigate through several ‘mini-apps’ within the PinchVR ‘super-app’ which would essentially be an operating system within the iOS application.

Looking at the traditional Maps interface and putting it on steroids was the inspiration behind this solution. Although we had a novel concept, there were issues with ergonomics motion sickness which required us to revisit locomotion and solve these challenges.

Expanding on prior research, I wanted to take advantage of unlimited space in 3 dimensions where we could take existing 2D content from the web and put it on a spatial grid to be organized and sifted through in whatever manner the user was comfortable with.

We played with several spatial interface designs and highlighted some interesting navigation methods for both category surfing and search in 3D space.