Meta Quest + Windows 11
Remote Desktop

Meta and Microsoft partnered to build a best in class Remote Desktop experience in XR that rivals Apple’s Mac Virtual Display on Apple Vision Pro.

Windows 11 PCs and Meta Quest headsets pair and connect intuitively, providing users with a powerful, adaptable and portable workspace setup.

Role
Product Designer

Contribution
–> XFN Alignment
–> Product Design
–> Prototyping
–> Design Spec

Brand
Meta Portal

Launch
JUL 2022

First Time Pairing

Intent
When no computer is paired with your headset yet, Quest looks for keyboards in front of you as an initial signal. 

Signal
When a keyboard is detected, Quest sends out a quesry for pairable Windows 11 PCs –new Windows 11 PCs come with everything you need pre-installed.

Affordance
If Quest gets a response, a spatial pairing affordance is anchored to the tracked keyboard, making it effortless to discover Remote Desktop on Quest and start pairing.

Setup
The user is guided through the simple and secure pairing process of scanning a QR code that is brought up on their PC using a keyboard short cut and entering a 2 digit PIN.

Reconnect

Anticipatory Affordance
A detected and tracked keyboard serves as an initial signal that the user is in front of their computer and might want to conntect.

Now the headset checks whether the user's computer is unlocked  and online – available to connect. 

If both are true, a connect affordance is anchored to the computer's keyboard making it effortless to connect – but also easy to ignore if not relevant this very moment.

Continuity
When the user reconnects their computer, their previous workspace setup is automatically restored. The number of virtual displays, their resolution and their relative position.

The headset periodically saves changes to the user's setup automatically, no need for the user to worry about that.

Display Formats

Aspect Ratios
The user has the choice between 4 typical aspect ratios for their virtual displays to create a personal workspace that meets best their needs.

Due to a HorizonOS limitation, 'ultrawide' only supports a single display in Focus View. When the user switches to 'ultrawide' all secondary displays are automatically closed and the user's app windows are combined into a single 32:9 display. When the user leaves Focus View, their previous display configuration is automatically restored, including the distribution of their application windows across displays.

Multi-Monitor
In addition to a single 'ultrawide' display, users can have up to 3 virtual displays in various aspect ratios. The user can spatially disptribute these displays for a powerful multi-tasking workspace setup. The user's computer automatically 'understands' where the virtual displays are relative to each other so that the mouse cursor intuitively travels between displays.

Resolution
The user can change the resolution of their displays to make things appear larger of get more space per display. The headset defaults to the resolution that delivers the best render quality based on the displays size and position relative to the user. 

Spatial Anticipatory UI

Connect Affordance
System notifications and persistent toasts can feel very distracting. Instead a connect button is anchored to the tracked keyboard of the user's computer. Allowing the user to intuitively connect their compute by just 'looking' at it.

The position of the keyboard is typically out of the way of ordinary UI in HorizonOS, and thus not interfering with anything else the user might be doing in their headset. It also places the connect affordance at the bottom of the user's peripheral view, making it easy to ignore whenever there is no intent to connect.

It Takes a Village

Shipping the best experience possible on a very aggressive timeline required me to partner with a great variety of cross-functional roles across multiple organizations at Meta and Microsoft on a daily basis.

3 month — from initial concept to first working demo
6 month — from initial concept to public beta