Overview
Buying furniture is a spatial decision, but most shopping experiences happen in 2D. Customers need to imagine scale, placement, and style without knowing how the furniture will actually look in their own space.
Interior designers can create thoughtful layouts, but communicating their vision and helping clients visualize the final result remains challenging.
Mixed Reality (MR) bridges the gap between imagination and reality—allowing designers and clients to visualize furniture in a real environment before making decisions.
Role: Product Designer
Platform: Meta Quest 3 / iPad
Focus: Spatial UX, Interaction Design, User Research
01 The Challenge
A sofa, table, or cabinet is not just a product—it changes how a space feels and functions. However, customers often hesitate because they cannot answer simple questions:
WHY?
• Does the layout feel balanced?
• Will the final space look the way I imagined?
• Will this furniture fit my room?
Traditional online shopping experiences cannot fully solve these questions because they rely on 2D images and measurements.
Key opportunity:
Help users experience furniture decisions before committing to a purchase.
Understand
the interior
designer’s
workflow
User Flow
To design a solution that truly supports interior designers, I needed to understand their workflow, challenges, and decision-making process.
I interviewed in-house interior designers and mapped their end-to-end process, from initial client discussions to final recommendations.
Key Insights
Designers do not struggle with creating layouts—they struggle with communicating spatial ideas.
Clients often have difficulty understanding drawings, floor plans, and 3D models because they require strong spatial imagination.
Opportunity
Instead of asking clients to imagine the space, let them experience it.
As interior designer:
Finalized user flow:
By removing the need for clients to navigate complex 3D controls, this approach reduces onboarding friction and keeps them focused on the design. Real-time updates create a more natural, immersive experience.
Prioritize
We analyzed the user workflow, listed all potential features, and prioritized them using an impact-versus-feasibility matrix, focusing on high-impact, high-feasibility opportunities.
We prioritized the core user flows: adding products, editing products, and updating the design layout.
02 Immersive Research
Designing for spatial computing is fundamentally different from designing for screens. Users are not sitting in front of a fixed interface—they are moving, looking, and interacting within a physical environment.
To better understand spatial interaction, I explored Apple Vision Pro through two perspectives:
As a user:
I experienced how spatial interfaces behave in the real world, focusing on:
• Virtual object placement
• Depth and scale
• Opacity and shadows
• How digital objects anchor to physical surfaces
As a observer:
I watched first-time users interact with Vision Pro to understand onboarding challenges.
I observed moments of:
• Confusion
• Hesitation
• Discovery
03 Define
Define
docs
Unlike a mouse or touchscreen, VR interactions rely on controller inputs, each with a different level of precision and intent. Defining clear button mappings and documenting their behavior was essential to creating a consistent user experience.
Because interior designers may not have prior VR experience, I created a user guide that explains controller interactions and key actions through simple instructions.
Reduce learning barriers
User testing revealed that first-time users needed clearer guidance when interacting with VR controls. Based on this insight, I improved onboarding and added contextual support throughout the experience.
Below are a few examples from the guide.
03 Design
Moodboard
We initially explored a warm terracotta orange palette to create a sense of comfort and approachability.
After conducting A/B testing, we refined the visual direction toward a more minimalist palette featuring black, dark navy, white, and grey. This updated direction better aligned with the needs of professional users.
Why this works:
Black and navy communicate focus, confidence, and authority—qualities that resonate with high-end interior designers and reflect the premium nature of the experience.
White and grey provide a calm, neutral foundation that reduces visual noise and allows the 3D furniture assets to remain the primary focus.
Our approach
Designing for mixed reality introduces challenges that don’t exist in traditional 2D interfaces. Users move through physical spaces while interacting with virtual content, making safety a fundamental design consideration.
I chose the passthrough view as the core visual foundation of the experience. Unlike fully immersive VR, mixed reality requires users to remain aware of their physical surroundings at all times.
The passthrough design allows users to see their environment—including objects, furniture, and people—while interacting with the interface. This reduces the risk of collisions and creates a greater sense of confidence, encouraging users to explore the experience more naturally.
Due to technical constraints from the development team, I made several design adjustments to ensure the experience remained reliable and scalable.
I changed the main background to a solid colour to reduce visual clutter and improve focus. Instead of relying on hover interactions to reveal menus, I added clear labels to the interface to support easier navigation. Tooltips are also designed to appear automatically when contextual guidance is needed, ensuring users can discover key functions without additional effort.
Reducing visual clutter
Changed the background to a solid colour to improve focus and reduce motion distraction.
Improving navigation clarity
Replaced hover-based menu discovery with visible labels to make actions easier to understand.
Providing contextual guidance
Added automatic tooltips when users need additional support.
iPad Mockups
I also designed iPad mockups to explore a companion experience that allows interior designers to edit MR layouts and enables clients to preview the design on an iPad. Due to the scope of this portfolio, the detailed iPad design exploration is not included in this case study.
04 Test
What did
they say
User Testing
We conducted user testing to validate the usability of the MR experience and identify areas for improvement. The sessions revealed two key insights:
Improved onboarding
clarity
Improved onboarding and contextual instructions helped users understand controls faster.
Increased design
confidence
Users found that viewing furniture in their own environment helped them better understand scale and layout, reducing uncertainty.
04 Reflection
This project changed how I approach design in spatial computing.
Designing for 3D requires understanding not only interfaces, but also human movement, perception, and physical environments.
The interface is no longer a layer on top of the experience—the environment itself becomes part of the interface.
Although current technology has limitations, designers should consider both today’s constraints and tomorrow’s possibilities. By building with future potential in mind, we can create experiences that move closer to the full promise of spatial computing.