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Biotech VR Training Simulator

Overview

It’s very challenging conceptualizing designs for virtual environments that are both aesthetically pleasing and functional for the end user. I’ve learned through much trial and error that it’s best to be constantly iterating and testing designs to achieve an optimal output. Rarely do I find success with my designs on the first try alone. This case study highlights designs that I created for an Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Biotech training VR experience. The output of this project would be able to test a pharmaceutical client’s sales representatives’ knowledge of the disease states and curriculum while assisting in building patient empathy.

Implementation Testing

The aesthetic for this project was very sci-fi oriented, and the players would need a HUD (heads-up display) that would make them feel as if they were wearing a futuristic helmet. This was definitely a challenging design to nail. It took many tries until I landed on a design that provided users enough indication of UI elements while not overly obscuring their vision or distracting them from the virtual environment.

Early concept mockup attempting to simulate the compositing of assets within a 3D virtual environment

I would always do multiple test runs of my designs within Unity to ensure that they were functioning in a 3D space as intended. It’s difficult to predict the final output of a design when I was primarily working on a 2D screen. I would regularly have to put on a Oculus headset and test as a user would be experiencing the designs.

Preliminary testing of interface elements within Unity

3D Interactive Interface Elements

Since many of the interfaces I had designed for this project were 2D layers stacked to resemble projected holograms, I wanted to have a few actual 3D elements for the user to engage with. I landed on these pentagonal orbs which could have text labels on different sides as needed. I then took my designs into Maya and began testing out animation states for how they could expand and collapse into multiple nodes as needed.

Animated icon Frames

Once I landed on a design for the floating iconography we would need in the experience, I took those assets into After Effects and began conceptualizing variations of their entry animations. I then exported the animations as PNG sequences which I then tested in Unity. These background animations would assist with visual indications within a potentially busy virtual environment.