Thinking about 3D-design Constraints for Effective 3D Interfaces

Understanding the design of 3D graphical user interfaces is not as simple as doing so for their 2D counterparts. While 3D naturally has an extra dimension in which to display graphics, and thus has the potential to increase the accessible area in which information can be presented to the user, 3D also presents entirely new ways to impede user performance and increase disorientation. As a result, 3D interfaces have had mixed success since their introduction. In this paper, we critically discuss the evolution of the 3D interface, in both the academic and commercial fields. This leads us highlight the four most relevant human computer interaction (HCI) design constraints for the effective implementation of 3D interfaces. We then present an example application designed with these constraints in mind, and focused on the specific use case of visualising simple metadata in post-production.