The Future of UI

What holds the future of UI?

Augmented reality and virtual reality are usability models for the future more than a technological fad. It promises to be a new way of experiencing the world and brings new challenges for UX Designers and developers in customizing the experience and interaction.

Creating an immersive experience is a revolutionary technology that is usually done in real-time and in the context of unique environments for users. It engages the audience by bringing the digital into the physical world.

Welcome to the Metaverse

The word Metaverse enunciates a big part of this movement that now seems to want to settle, which encompasses augmented reality, virtual reality, and everything that leads us to this maybe modern way of living: being part of a virtual universe.

In 2003 was launched Second Life, a free 3D virtual world and original metaverse where users can create, connect, and interact with others from around the world, the land is up for sale, and users are able to shop millions of items in the marketplace. They can also create and monetize their creations to earn real profits in a virtual economy. Companies and educators use branded social spaces for events and remote meetings. (Even BWM had promotional stands within this metaverse.) Second Life has been like the first version of what we are talking today.

Underneath the umbrella of the metaverse, dialectically, VR and AR are involved, but we must bear in mind that they are technologies, they do not have to be part of the metaverse, they are also working and study tools.?

Augmented reality is less isolating, it has this quality of being anchored to reality, presenting something you see in front of you as if it’s real. And curiously, the metaverse is something that is not reality, it is somewhere else where we can live. Fortnite, for example, is also a metaverse.

In virtual reality, you free yourself from the remote control but have a notion of where each finger of your hand is in the space. This possibility allows you to imagine a UI that could be a metaphor for a virtual desktop or another utterly new space, with mechanisms and representations that transcend the second dimension and bring a new way of relating to the objects we know.

All this experimentation and development was very indie at first, and the word metaverse contextualized it. Facebook changed the name of its company to Meta and is been a solid player in the metaverse.

3D: The Binding Element of the Metaverse

Hakuna’s universe is the web. With eyes on the future, we are observing and analyzing how we transfer elements of these languages and worlds we’ve mentioned to web development, in the transition to developing virtual and augmented reality.

The use of 3D is what appears as clear and distinctive within this metaverse, as the binding element. It’s the language that the universes that compose the Metaverse have in common.

At Hakuna, we are understanding 3D and its uses within the web. The web is naturally 2D. Now we work with libraries and technologies that allow us to incorporate 3D into the web.

As part of the web aesthetics and dialogue, 3D is linked to the idea of the future: if I am there, there is 3D. As a phenomenon of expression it generates empathy, it works as the discursive element. For example, it makes sense that Fortnite’s website is 3D because it links us to what happens in the game.

NFTs and Blockchain in the future of the UI

In the famous NFTs, 3D is also used a lot because they are digital assets. 3d solves it in an empathetic way, it makes you feel like you have a corporeal by making it three-dimensional, so can turn it around and move it freely. This is another reason that leads us to 3D.

This is also linked to web 3 and with it to the blockchain where 3D is also a binding element. Blockchain in this decentralized universe allows establishing the contracts that regulate, validate transactions, and store this information. This allowed the crypto phenomenon.?

Most of this stuff is related to finance and crypto but it is not the heart of the matter. It also allows commercial phenomena: DNI, college titles, passports. They are based on the logic of something that once someone gives to you, no one can take it away from you, as opposed to the previous web where private services have entire control of the management and use.

Transactions within video games are also based on these Blockchain democracies. In Epic, for example, you buy 12 suits and 40 thousand weapons, and if tomorrow Epic is gone, your outfits and weapons will still be there. You own that.

The new challenges of AR/AV

Progression of its adoption.

The first challenge of this revolution is the progression of its adoption. AR/VR is very different from other computer technologies both because of what it does and because of its complex physical characteristics. Like any new technology, it may take years or months before it is widely adopted.

The cost.

The second challenge that we could consider is economic. Its implementation is expensive. For example, wearable tech such as holodeck glasses and “wearable” sensors for skin, clothing or shoes, which provide environmental and biometric data to be processed by applications, are still in the research stage and they are expensive. They lack the seasoning of "massiveness" or "necessity" as cell phones have today.

Privacy regulations.

Another very interesting challenge to consider about this is the privacy regulations. The information shared between sister technological applications, the privacy of users, their environment, and their security are potential risks to be taken into account.

Wrapping up

The future of UI is uncertain but surely it has to go through the control of the three-dimensional, through interfaces that know how to make good use of the corporeal.

There is a lot of investment in this field right now by Apple, Facebook, and Google. 3D is one of the vehicles for the future. The sense of depth in the interface emulates the real form of human movement: buttons, for example, could have a tactile and dimensional relationship with an interface.

From that moment on, interfaces that are unthinkable today begin to appear, as well as tools' functionalities and dynamism. Today everyone’s still trying to imagine those things.

Lucio Marina. Lead Developer at Hakuna. Technology expert with over 30 years of experience in 3D, videogame and interactive sensors development. Lucio has an integrative perspective as a project manager, designer, architect, and developer of interactive solutions for desktop, mobile, web, and virtual reality