Prototyping in VR

I wanted to continue the discussion of sketching for VR and transition to...
How do you prototype for VR?

As Invision hasn't created a VR, tool as of yet, what are people using to prototype? I decided to research how others in the field are prototyping for VR...

But before we can begin a prototype, we need to answer two questions:
1. What questions are you trying to answer with this prototype?
2. Who is your audience for this prototype?

Answering these questions will help determine what type of prototype to build and therefore what tools to use. For example, if the questions you're trying to resolve are around dimensions and FOV, and your audience is a co-worker like a developer, you can probably get away with something low fidelity. Maybe you just need to jump into a design tool like Tiltbrush or Sketchbox and talk through the layout and interactions in a simple prototype.

On the other hand, if you need to run a usability test and your audience is your end user you may need something more polished and functional to get the answers you're looking for, but how do you do that at a low cost, without building everything out?

Here are a few ideas I discovered in my research...

Storyboard VR

Storyboard VR, a tool to prototype VR ideas was build by Artefact, a Seattle design agency to help them envision and plan VR experiences without first investing time and resources into development. While it looks like this type of tool requires more upfront design work (either sketching or within Sketch) it does eliminate the need to code and still have a viable version to show an end user in a usability study.

(I feel a whole new blog post coming on after I use Storyboard in my own process.)

VR Design Apps

These type of tools are great for rapid iteration. Tiltbrush is a great tool to get into and do some rough ideas within the VR space itself --no guessing in 2D. I've heard of a few teams that will essentially use Titlbrush like a virtual whiteboard. But I'd say the one advantage that Sketchbox has over Tiltbrush (for now) is it's ability to make a shape into an object and move it around. This comes in handy for exploring interactions within the experience itself.

Prototype in Unity

Of course you could always build a simple prototype using Unity or another game engine, there are many free 3D models you can use instead of actual assets to test against --or like above you can always build your concept out of simple shapes. As well there are many SDKs out there right now that make certain code and animations easier than coding yourself.

I also stumbled upon a new tool in my research which is about to be released into beta, Spatial Stories a VR/AR writing suite dedicated to interactive content creation, with apparently no need to code.
I'm interested to see how this product pans out as a prototyping tool --I'll update this post when I get access!

In conclusion

If you're looking for a low fidelity tool to prototype quick iterations between coworkers and even early stage usability tests a tool like Sketchbox might be a good solution.

However, if instead you're looking to build a higher fidelity prototype Storyboarding VR does look you can imitate simple interactions (along the lines of Invision) without the need to code. I suppose if you are more familiar with Unity (and have better developer chops than myself) Unity can be a good option, as long as you keep your fidelity and development time low using existing assets and SDKs.

I look forward to reporting back on how some of these prototype solutions work for me...