Bruno Simon Interview!

 

I Interviewed Bruno Simon! (He's French)

Bruno's background

Bruno Simon is a creative software developer that lives in France. He is very well known for his work with Three.js, a library that takes abstracts the logic of WebGL (which is very low level), making it easier and more comprehensive to work with. He uses these tools to create 3D generation within websites. He has worked on creative websites for a long time, inspired by his love for video games, and now teaches Three.js as well as continuing to work on projects. You can check out his really cool portfolio at bruno-simon.com.

Start of the Interview

Tools

Bruno started by telling me a little bit about how he makes these projects. What tools he uses, other people are using, and what is up and coming. He talked a lot about three.js, of course, but also how he finds Blender being very useful for his designs. He also mentioned an upcoming and exciting new tech, html-in-canvas. He says that when 3D rendering a website, the models are all in what is called a canvas, that is what you can see. The html, the functionality of the website historically is in a separate layer from that canvas. This new tool is focused on putting the html in the canvas, allowing fore more functionality. He said he hasn't had time to mess with it yet, so doesn't know exactly how it is being used, but there are some cool examples to look at.

Accessibility

The next questions I asked him focused around the idea of accessibility. When I asked him how much accessibility is being sacrificed when it comes to 3D rendering or creatively designing websites, he answered simply "a lot." It is difficult to create these websites with complex immersed worlds and make them accessible. Common accessibility tools are made to interact with standard website designs. When I mentioned screen readers he did mention that all the information on the page is still in html, and so can be interacted with as such, so it is not out of the possibility. He talked about his time working with Immersive Garden and the clients that hired them. He said that the clients didn't really care about accessibility. They wanted a site that wowed people, that got them recognized and was usable on as many devices as possible. He said that their accessibility team was already hard at work just to make things compatible and easy to interact with on a computer as well as mobile devices. This is something that I was expecting, and also a topic that has been in my thoughts a lot throughout this project. 

A Time and Place...

After this I asked him about when he thinks websites should be creatively and immersively designed, and if he thinks that there are times that they shouldn't. He said absolutely. As we talked he mentioned two terms that I found really useful, so I'm going to use them here. He said that there is a wow-web, and a useful-web. There are some sites that are made to wow, made to impress the users. These are NOT tools like Microsoft Word. Some tools are meant to be in the useful-web, and uber creative design can only get in the way and frustrate the user who is using the tool for a functional reason. He said that as a creative developer it can be hard to remember that sometimes and to remember that sometimes you are unable to sacrifice functionality for creative design, especially depending on the type of project you are working on. There is a line he said, and sometimes they overlap, but not usually. Some examples of overlap might be a tool like a apartment/house visualizer that uses 3D rendering to put the user in the physical and 3D space. As well as this, he also mentioned how the crazier you get with design, the more you have to be aware about performance, and possible issues you might be causing. For example the new iPhone liquid glass feature tends to drain the battery a lot faster, in an attempt to spruce up their intereface.

In conclusion...

My interview with Bruno was super useful. It was great to have some insights from someone who is deeply familiar with the technical application of the ideas I've been juggling because I myself have so little experience with it. He answered a lot of questions that I had and gave me a lot more to deliberate as well. He also has my dream life, creative development and living in France. Maybe one day...