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