3D to take the user experience into a new dimension
The user journey is paramount in website creation, conditioning the choices made by editorial, creative and technical teams with the aim of shaping a unique digital experience. In recent years, 3D has become an increasingly integral part of the user experience, evolving from an additional tool to a genuine component of the interface and development. Interactive 3D can add appeal to a brand through pedagogy, visualization, storytelling and gamification, enhancing user engagement and immersion.
The user journey is at the heart of site creation strategies. It conditions all the choices made by our editorial, creative and technical teams. Our obsession: shaping a unique digital experience for each customer.
In recent years, 3D has increasingly been used to enhance the user experience. In its early days, it was used as an additional tool within sites, for example with Maison Du Monde, which in 2018 enabled its customers to model 3D mock-ups of the rooms in their homes. Today, it is truly integrated into the user experience, user interface and development.
To create an interactive 3D site that adds appeal to your brand, the project goes through a number of phases that, when put together, will give life to an interactive user experience. Each stage is essential to achieve an intuitive, aesthetic and interactive device:
- UX design builds a product that can be used easily by anyone. It provides a great deal of help in navigating through the course to build a solid foundation.
- Design brings us the visual universe of the product. From the sketch to the finished 3D scene, via modeling phases, placement of textures, lighting, etc., development then animates the scene, setting up movements and interactions.
- Development then animates the scene, setting movement parameters and implementing interactions. It can also limit the area of movement, and frame the scene if it’s larger than the screen.
3D, a device for user engagement
Education and awareness
3D visualization can be used to enhance the audience’s understanding of a subject, bringing a playful aspect to reading and raising awareness. As part of corporate communications, it allows us to twist the experience towards a more creative and innovative approach. For CSR messages, for example, 3D can be an excellent way to convince and be remembered.
Zuehlke, a global provider of innovation services, offers a 3D digital experience on a dedicated site to encourage people to move towards more virtuous consumption habits. The company then uses the example of a washing machine to explain the different ways in which innovative products can be manufactured more responsibly.
Storytelling and gamification
In a more recreational and emotional approach, the 3D experience can also take users on a journey, and even make them dream. Cartier immerses us in its brand universe with the digital experience “the fabulous Cartier Journey”. To further encourage immersion and attention, the brand adds gamification to the experience.
An endless source of inspiration for our R&D
At Dusens, we’re becoming increasingly familiar with this type of project. The aim is above all to enrich the user experience, but also to highlight a new skill within the agency.
To explore new navigation trends and broaden our range of in-house tools, we set out to create a device including interactive 3D.
In this way, 3D enables better retention of information and deeper immersion, amplifying brand messages that are not only seen, but also felt.
As engagement creators and digital-first agencies, we’re always looking for new ways to engage your audiences.
