ARCore Elements is an AR utility app designed for developers and designers that makes high-quality AR production accessible and fun. It shows you how to set user expectations in AR, how to encourage users to move around and explore the AR world, how to interact with virtual objects, and more.

Topics covered:

AR Principles and Patterns Covered

Designing environments

Creating and manipulating virtual objects

Real-world movement

Making a user interface

ARCore Elements is produced completely in house at Google Daydream, released as an Android app on Play Store on 02/14/2019. Targeted at AR developers and designers, this product details design principles and UX patterns empowered by the ARCore Platform (the developer platform for AR introduced by Google). It is the first AR app at Google that shares AR design basics.

Acknowledging the gap of design best practices in AR industry, the team sweated on ARCore Elements for almost a year from concept-ing to production, with a 30+ people cross-functional team spanning from concept artist, visual designer, interaction designer, UX engineer, UX writer, developers, product managers to business development and design/development relations.

The app features 3D island-themed interfaces in AR, and a storyline of "Dotty", a little girl who embarks on a journey of AR exploration, jumping between islands resembling distinct topics like. The selection of topics intentionally addressed the four major pillars of AR design: user environment, user movement, UI interfaces and object manipulation. UI details like rendering style, size, height and width of objects, UI widgets, etc., were all tested AR design decisions themselves to educate target users.