Give your users an experience they’ll never forget
Two days filled with the latest developments during the React Summit and JSNation conferences in Amsterdam: my, what a difference 3 years make. During my internship at SQLI in 2021 I was working on my bachelor thesis, tackling 3D on the web. Let’s discover the newest insights together.
What is XR?
Learnings about XR & 3D
XR stands for Extended Reality and comprises different ways in which we have developed different technologies to do so, like VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented reality), and MR (Mixed Reality).
At the React Summit, we learned that XR and 3D on the web are on the rise. While we were looking at demos that show all these XR experiences happen, I was already getting inspired. What about a VR experience based on real places? You could get dropped near the Belfort in Bruges and get to take a good look around. Or imagine being able to discover your next Boni snack from the comfort of your own couch at home. I could already see the possibilities for our clients. And this technology is no longer limited to phones! WebXR has expanded enough that we can imagine this technology on phones, tablets, laptops, desktops… Vision Pro? Vision Pro!
The possibilities of WebXR are virtually endless and allows for all kinds of fun stuff. I have always shown interest in how to combine the things I love most and throw it into a fun website. Now, with the current capacities of WebXR, I already can imagine myself making music on the latest Jules Destrooper Cookie boxes for example. Additionally, our potential user base is bound to be technologically savvy enough in a few years. The reasons for not exploring the huge potential for the sake of excluding some users is decreasing, especially since it could increase inclusivity in general.
A chat with Mr Doob
An essential part of attending conferences is networking and socialising with like-minded people and trailblazers in the digital industry. In between talks at JSNation, I took a second to talk with Mr Doob, the creator of ThreeJS, asking him some burning questions about the future of his brainchild. And I must say, based on my chat with him, I have high expectations and here’s why:
- First of all, the most recent addition to the editor allows people to more easily get into ThreeJS.
- Then we also have more performance stuff that will come into play, such as it re-rendering higher texture only when there has not been any interaction for a few seconds.
- Code reworks allowing for more legible code and so much more!
If this is what is announced right now, I can’t wait to see what Mr Doob will add to it, especially since he never went to university. It is crazy to think how far the library has come and while talking to him he seemed very excited and motivated to make it even greater and better.
More cool stuff to keep in mind
The other ‘cool new web thing’ I want to talk about is View Transitions API. Forget boring page loads and insert nice animations and transitions: ‘ohh yeaaahh’. Of course, you will need a design that reuses elements on pages so the browser can “animate” these for you but imagine instead of a refresh you see a picture of your teammate slide up and text appear underneath it!
This one is still in its starting shoes with limited browser support right now, but I do think it’s something to keep track of. Especially if it already looks this nice and we are just at the start. Frameworks like Astro do support backwards compatibility for this so if you already want to make use of this; this is your golden tip!
If you want to know more about what we can do to enhance and improve the user experience of your website or app, get in touch with us. As you can see, we are raring to go and implement some fun new visual stuff to make your website pop!
