Overview
XR Workout was an existing VR fitness concept that had already established its core mechanics, workout structure, and underlying technology. Our team was brought in to evolve the prototype into a more polished and commercially viable product, with a particular focus on user interface, interaction design, visual presentation, workout flow, and overall player experience.
The original prototype had been developed in Godot and provided a functional foundation for the product. We brought the experience into Unity while preserving the platform-agnostic backend systems, algorithms, and API integrations that already supported the application.
Rather than replacing the original concept, our goal was to understand what was already working and build upon it. The resulting product combined the original creator's underlying systems and vision with a redesigned interface, expanded interaction systems, new visual presentation, and a more streamlined VR experience.
The Challenge
VR fitness presents a particular design challenge: the interface has to support a relatively complex set of choices without interfering with the physical activity that is happening around it.
The original prototype used four separate menus positioned around the player. While this provided access to the necessary functionality, it required users to physically turn toward different menus, sometimes rotating 180 degrees to move through what should have been a relatively simple sequence of choices.
This became especially problematic when combined with hand tracking. A user who was already moving their hands, head, and body during a workout needed an interface that was easy to understand and difficult to trigger accidentally.
The product also needed to communicate workout performance without overwhelming the player. Accuracy, impact force, movement, effort, scoring, and derived statistics all needed to be presented while the user was actively exercising.
Evolving the Existing Product
One of the most important aspects of the project was preserving the strengths of the original prototype rather than treating the existing work as something to be discarded.
The original creator continued developing the backend algorithms, API integrations, and platform-agnostic systems. Those systems formed the foundation of the Unity implementation, while our team focused on the areas that could be improved directly through the Unity experience.
Every major design change was reviewed with the original creator before implementation. This created a collaborative development process in which the original vision remained intact while the product evolved substantially in presentation, interaction, and usability.
The result was not a replacement for the original product, but an evolution of it.
Redesigning the Interface
The original four-menu structure was replaced with a single interactive menu positioned in front of the player.
The new interface could be moved and interacted with through pointing, clicking, and hand-tracking gestures. Tabs and nested controls allowed the same range of functionality to exist within a much more linear interaction model.
Instead of asking the player to physically search the environment for the next menu, the interface could guide them through a sequence of choices in one place.
This also gave us considerably more control over how the interface communicated information. Workout settings, difficulty, duration, exercise selection, audio preferences, environments, effects, and other options could be organized into a single coherent system.
The interface went through multiple iterations to find the balance between providing enough information and keeping the player's attention on the workout itself.
Designing the Workout Experience
The core workout loop allowed users to construct a session around their preferences.
A user could select the duration and type of workout, choose exercises and difficulty settings, and select music before beginning. During the workout, the system tracked performance and provided immediate feedback before presenting a breakdown at the end of the session.
The workout experience was built around several primary performance measurements.
Accuracy
The system tracked whether users successfully hit incoming targets with their hands or head.
Impact
The force of each successful interaction was measured, allowing the experience to distinguish between weaker and stronger hits.
Effort
Head movement and overall motion were tracked as an indication of how actively the user was participating in the workout.
Additional analytics could then be derived from these measurements, including performance summaries and estimates such as calories burned.
The challenge was turning those measurements into information that was immediately understandable while the player was moving.
We used visual effects, color, shapes, changing values, point displays, and other interface elements to communicate whether an interaction was successful and how well it was performed. Audio feedback reinforced those same states through positive and negative sounds.
The intention was to make the system understandable through the experience itself rather than requiring the player to stop exercising and interpret a complicated interface.
Designing for Imperfect Tracking
Hand tracking created another significant challenge.
During fast movements, the headset could occasionally lose track of a user's hand. In a conventional application, this might simply register as a missed input. In a fitness application, however, the consequence was more significant: the user could perform the correct physical movement and still be penalized because the hardware temporarily failed to recognize it.
We approached this by making the interaction systems more forgiving.
In addition to improving the reliability of the underlying tracking, we experimented with prediction and interpretation systems that could use the direction and momentum of a user's movement to determine whether an intended interaction should have registered.
This introduced an important distinction between physical accuracy and perceived accuracy. The system did not always need to reproduce the hardware's interpretation perfectly. It needed to provide a reliable representation of what the player was actually trying to accomplish.
The goal was to make the experience feel responsive and fair, even when the hardware itself was imperfect.
Building for Hand Tracking
Hand tracking also influenced the design of the interface itself.
We needed to support several different interaction methods, including pointing, touch-style interaction, and pinch-based controls, while minimizing accidental inputs.
The team developed custom gesture interpretation for specific menu actions and built a virtual keyboard designed around the application's requirements before ultimately moving toward the platform's default keyboard when it became the more practical solution.
We also implemented additional interaction concepts, including a virtual watch that could be used as another method of accessing menus while inside the workout experience.
These systems required constant consideration of how the player's hands, headset, interface, and physical activity interacted with one another.
My Role
I served as the lead designer and was responsible for the majority of the Unity implementation and integration work.
The team consisted of two 3D artists, another programmer, myself, and a project manager who primarily facilitated the contract and business side of the work.
My responsibilities included:
Game and interaction design
UI/UX design and implementation
Unity implementation
Workout mechanics implementation
Hand-tracking interaction
Additional programming
Additional 3D work
Integration of art, audio, code, and interface systems
Testing and iteration
Build and delivery management
Project coordination
I also handled much of the day-to-day project management and served as the primary person responsible for bringing the different disciplines together into functional builds that could be reviewed by the original creator.
The original creator remained closely involved throughout development, continuing work on backend systems, algorithms, and API integrations while providing feedback and approval on design changes.
Integrating the Platform
The Unity implementation also required connecting several systems that existed outside the core game experience.
The project included networking and multiplayer functionality, YouTube API integration for music, Meta platform functionality for friends and social features, and voice communication.
Each of these systems introduced its own technical considerations, while the VR interface needed to remain consistent across them.
A significant portion of the work involved making these separate systems feel like a single product rather than a collection of independent features.
A Collaborative Evolution
One of the most valuable aspects of the project was the development process itself.
We were not starting with a blank canvas. There were already mechanics, algorithms, interfaces, assets, design decisions, and a functioning prototype. The challenge was determining what should remain, what needed to change, and how those pieces could be brought together into a more cohesive experience.
That required working closely with the original creator rather than simply replacing their decisions with our own.
The final product represented a collaborative evolution of the original concept. The underlying technology and core vision remained recognizable, while the interface, presentation, interaction model, workout feedback, and overall user experience were substantially developed.
Results
XR Workout was commercially released on the Meta Quest platform.
The project also reached a level of visibility on the Meta Quest Store that resulted in featured placement within the workout category, although the exact timing and nature of that placement should be verified before being presented as a specific project metric.
The project had also been publicly demonstrated through builds and testing as early as 2022.
Reflection
XR Workout reinforced the value of approaching an existing product as something to understand before trying to improve it.
The project already had a strong underlying concept and functioning technology. The opportunity was to identify where the experience could become clearer, more engaging, and more commercially viable without losing the original intent.
My contribution was not simply implementing a new interface or porting a project into Unity. It was understanding the existing systems, working within their constraints, collaborating with their creator, and using game design and interaction design principles to evolve the experience.
That approach is particularly valuable when entering an existing project. A successful redesign does not necessarily mean replacing what came before it. Often, the more difficult and useful skill is recognizing what already works, understanding why it works, and finding ways to develop it further.