8 Foundational Rules When Making Animation for Mobile AR

Kudos for gearing up your animation to the immersive times of augmented reality (AR)! The medium brings forth design challenges and opportunities that are totally different from the erstwhile era. Emergence of mobile devices and immense hardware capabilities has given AR designers plenty of room to try their skills.

Here’re eight foundational rules you need to remember when making animation for mobile AR:

1. Identify precise needs of your audiences

Design is about user experience, not the technologies used. You need to take stock of precise user requirements, develop a vision of the user experience you want to create, and choose a set of technologies that will enable you execute your vision within the budget. Productivity with fewer errors should be your goal.

Put in time to understand what your target audiences desire. Meeting them in person and conducting a series of interviews with them will help you gain insight into their mindset.

2. Validate your hypothesis

Before going for all out product development, make doubly sure that the product is indeed useful for the target audiences. Often, people get washed away by their own idea and go on developing a product unabated only to realize later that the product has no takers.

Story boarding is quite useful in understanding how users would use AR. It helps you understand how the end users are using the product in the real world. You get to know all the available opportunities and constraints.

3. Design according to users’ environment

Create user experience in line with their environment, not particular mobile phones. Where are you expecting the users to use your product? Focus on integrating the animation seamlessly with the user environment.

Work out how your animation can adjust to different surfaces seamlessly. Using features like surface detection will help your animation fit in the various surfaces. Proper light estimation and use of dynamic lights with real-time shadows will make your objects come across as realistic ones.

Make it a point to provide users with enough space to enjoy the experience.

4. Factor in user movement

Animation should adapt quickly if users move while experiencing AR. Step out of the boundaries of the device if you want to create an immersive experience for your users. For instance, if you demonstrate an AR model of a stadium, viewers may be eager to see it from different sides. People should be at ease when interacting with the animation.

Limit number of objects in the area if you want users to focus on a certain object. A crowd of elements out there will only make it harder for the users. It’s also important to use precise proportions for objects.

5. Crowding the screen with controls

Avoid making the mistake of putting too many controls on the viewport. Users aren’t bothered about controls when they’re watching the animation. If you’ve to, only use controls that you cannot do without. There may be 1-2 controls with high frequency of use and you may limit viewport appearance to these.

6. New objects shouldn’t go unnoticed

New objects making headway to the visible area of the screen tend to go unnoticed. You need to take steps to prevent change blindness. Find ways to make the transition noticeable for users. Meaningful motions and animated effects will draw users’ attention to objects you’ve introduced.

7. Prevent appearance of unexpected objects in viewport

Elements may appear on the users’ viewport out of nowhere, ruining user experience and revealing the truth that the AR environment is unreal. There may be scenarios when it becomes imperative for you to show messages; however, try to keep these the least interfering.

8. Create a zero learning curve for users

You need to make the on boarding process crystal clear to ease up the learning curve for users. Avoid static walk-throughs as they don’t gel well with AR animations. Most often, people won’t even opt for these tours and decide to view the animation themselves. It’s always better to follow the approach of demonstrating the stuff without any preaching.

Summing Up

Keeping to these foundational rules will increase manifold the probability of success? However, most businesses lack the requisite talent within their ranks, so they prefer hiring professional 3D animation services. Roping in a reputable 3D animation company will help you get the kind of animation you’re hoping for.