Interface design

Today a colleague told me that she was impressed with something she had seen in the Oculus Crescent Bay demo — an interactive flying dragon. Not a real dragon of course. But because the virtual dragon was rendered in full surround VR, she said she felt a visceral sense of danger, even though she knew it was all make believe.

We then discussed the connection with the Lumiere brothers’ famous 1896 train sequence, and whether we might now be witnessing the last moment in history when anybody would be able to achieve that sort of effect in VR. In another few years it is likely that what she experienced may become as ordinary and expected as a shot of a train coming toward the camera.

She then told me that every time the dragon flew at her in the demo, she involuntarily dropped down, and looked for something to hide under — even though she knew intellectually that this made no sense.

Then I had an “aha!” moment. “Don’t you realize what you were experiencing?” I said.

“No,” she replied, “what was I experiencing?”

“That was an example,” I said, “of a dragon drop interface!”