Collective Conversations with Maria Martinez
Maria Martinez, an engineer with a passion for design, transitioned from UX/UI design to founding StudyXR, driven by her fascination with augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality. Inspired by a supportive online community, Maria aims to democratize tech education through StudyXR's 10-minute immersive challenges, making XR accessible to all skill levels. With a commitment to community and knowledge sharing, StudyXR empowers learners to unlock their creative potential in the rapidly evolving fashion technology space.
Tell us a bit about your background and what inspired you to embark on your own learning journey, you know, in extended reality and coming to start StudyXR.
For sure. Originally, I'm an engineer, industrial engineer, but in my heart, it has always been design. More specifically, designing experiences. I have always been focused on that. And then I started working in the digital industry. I started as a pro designer, like UX/UI designer, researcher, and so on. I had been working in that area for like six years. I like digital, but it was a little bit flat. So I thought, what can I do to make this experience more immersive? I'm always looking for a challenge.
When did you first come across augmented reality?
When I was on Instagram I discovered augmented reality. I was like, give me a second. I remember from the summer of Pokemon Go, thinking that that was kind of magic. I couldn't even understand at that moment how that digital Pokemon was in the middle of my street at my house, you know? So then, when I saw that all of that was augmented reality, and that people were actually working as augmented reality creators, I was like, wait, wait, wait, this is my sweet spot.
When I started just sharing everything that I was doing regarding AR on social media , I discovered that there were a lot of people who were in the same journey as me, starting or that they have started for a while and they were more professional. I found a community that seriously, I think it's the best community in the world because we all share what we know. If you ask a question, anyone will answer you and you give, and they always give back.
What inspired you to take the educational route and act as a resource for others?
In my family, my mom, my dad, and my sister, they work in education, so I guess it's in my blood. I love to be on camera sharing what I know. That's how everything came to where we are right now, having a StudyXR and the learning platform for anyone who is not in tech, but wanna jump into tech and wanna learn what extended reality is and unlock that possibility of creating any immersive experience if they want.
It’s great that you talk about your experience in the community of how everyone is so open and willing to share because I think that makes a huge difference in your learning experience, especially when it comes to learning and building technical skills. How do you center the community at StudyXR?
100%. In study XR, we have two big pillars that run the entire company: one is sharing knowledge and the other one is the community. These two need to be together. You cannot share knowledge if you don't have a community and you If you don't have a community, there is no one that is going to absorb that knowledge that you're sharing. We keep that in mind when we are creating anything. From the community, from the challenges, any content on social media, everything. I'm so grateful for it.
It’s been amazing watching your growth on social media as a content creator sharing your experience learning and experimenting with these technologies, to taking everything that you’ve learned and giving it back to the community in the form of a learning platform. How was your experience making that transition? How did you incorporate your learnings into the platform?
Yeah, it was incredible when we launched it. I was blown away by all the love and support for everyone who has been following me previously as a freelancer and now that I have become the founder of this company. The love is there and they were all really excited.
I don't want people to feel lonely on their learning journey. If I can do something for creators, sharing what they know, but there is not a centralized place where you can find all the information regarding extended reality. You will need to go to YouTube, you will need to search on Reddit, on Twitter, and then you need to understand who are the key people to follow. That took me some time at the beginning to figure out. So there was a part at the beginning of my learning journey that I was like, this is too hard. There are so many new terms. I was getting confused with terms like Bitcoin, fintech and AR. I was like, wait, how are all of these related? So having a centralized location where you can find all the information and you can educate yourself and you can start learning with a long time investment because our challenges are like daily 10 minute challenges. You literally have 10 minutes for sure in your day.
How is StudyXR different from traditional learning platforms?
We wanted to make a big difference on how you learn online. We all have been, at certain points, self learners, and we all have signed up for online courses that we haven't finished. Actually, only 4 percent of people have finished, and I'm definitely not in that 4%. I've done a lot of online courses. And the reason for that is because it's too long, it's boring, or there is a lot of information that actually is not straight to the point. So, when I jumped into this education area, I was like, okay, I want to solve those problems. I want to create something like a challenge that when you start, before you even buy. What you're going to end up having is the outcome. So, for example, one of the challenges that we have is the beautiful art gallery and you are literally going to be able to create exactly that. With all the resources, with all the tools, like we provide everything for you.
Then, of course, it's up to you and your creativity if you want to recreate that, or if you want to add your own texture, or if you want to have your paintings inside the virtual art gallery. That's freedom for you to create anything from that. The minimum that you are going to create is exactly what you see on the little video that you see before you buy.
I don't want people to invest more than 10 minutes a day on something. You need something that goes fast. Like, okay, I start something today and after 10 minutes you can finish it. It’s not a one hour video where you don't know exactly what the topic is about and you don't know if you're actually going to end up building the art gallery, for example. On day one of this challenge, you are going to create the room. When you leave and you close your laptop at the end of the day or whatever, you have already created something.
It might even be that you get so addicted that you continue to day two and then you finish it because if you put all of the days together, it's like having an online course of around an hour, for example, for our five days challenge. So if you're on a Sunday, lazy at home, and you want to feel a little bit productive, and you want to unlock a new tech skill, you can jump into one of our challenges.
It’s so important to know what you’re getting out of something prior to purchasing. Actually being able to apply the tools that you learn through the first challenge or the first module makes a huge difference. What have you noticed stops people from taking that first step on their learning journey?
One of the biggest barriers that they have mentioned the most is time. They always mention, yeah, I don't want to jump into new online careers because I don't have the time.
And then when I tell them, it's 10 minutes. What have you spent 10 minutes doing today? Probably on Instagram, on TikTok. I don't know, but I can spend like 3 hours not knowing that it has passed 3 hours on TikTok. And then I'm like, whoa. So, you definitely have 10 minutes to work on your tech skills.
You mentioned that the challenges on the platform are co-created with some designers. What’s the skill level required to use StudyXR?
We want to be a platform that is open for anyone who wants to share their knowledge. We don’t want to have all the knowledge and think we are the only ones doing challenges, tutorials and so on. No. We have collaborated with different 3D artists, brands that have jumped into the immersive space, and other AR creators.
We target those on an entry level. Even like my mom could do it. Even people that already know a little bit more and want to professionalize or want to jump into coding. We use vocabulary for people at their level. So if you are a newbie to this, we will explain all of this to you as if you’re a newbie. If you already have some experience, we will use a different vocabulary. So no one needs to be scared of that. We also want to link the different dots of the Web3 community, all the tools that you can use and so on.
You mentioned that in these learning challenges it gives people the unique opportunity to be able to put their own creative spin on whatever it is that they're creating. How does freestyling unfold in the learning process?
We provide all the resources, like 3D textures, images, everything and there is no additional cost to that. So when you jump in the challenge, you have everything, there are no hidden fees.
When it comes to creativity, while we are giving the tutorial there are certain moments that we point out, like now you can use this 3D and this is a way to upload this 3D. But, if you have a different 3D because you are a 3D artist and you want to use it, we will prompt you to upload your 3D. For example, in the art gallery, you can add your own art.
You've talked about the art gallery, which is one of the challenges on the platform. What other challenges are currently up and running and can you tell us some about some future ones that we can expect?
Yes. Right now there are a couple of challenges for Instagram. So, we have the face mask that is in collaboration with Sarah. That one is like a beautiful mask with the flowers. That one catches the eye every time that we post any kind of content. People are like, wow, this is so beautiful. Sarah is an amazing 3D artist. We have the art gallery in collaboration with the art magazine and the art gallery in LA. Then we also have a one that is the AR portal, which is inspired by the movie Interstellar. So you go through a portal the same as in the movie and you can jump into the universe.
Then we also have another one upcoming where you can create your own minigame with your own avatar that will have your own face, and this one is also in collaboration with a brand called Union Avatar. I love this brand because you can literally take a selfie, upload to their website, and create your own avatar. You can choose the different clothing, like garments and so on, and it literally looks like you with a cool outfit, and you can download the avatar and then use it on Unity to create your own mini game.
Given StudyXR's platform and what you are teaching, how do you see the platform contributing to the fashion technology space?
I think digital fashion is one of the biggest communities that is pushing for this technology. One of the types of challenges that we want to bring is to make it possible for you to be able to create an AR version of your digital designs so others can try them. Learning how to mix real fashion with technology. I love fashion and it was my starting point. One of the first apps that I downloaded wasZero10 and I was amazed by it. I was like wait, this is magic.
Like how is it putting this on top of me? How is it moving with me? The anchoring that they have is really impressive and we want to teach how to get, for example, a good anchoring because it's true that sometimes it's hard. So all of these types of techniques will be available for future challenges for sure.
A big focus for us is access and inclusivity. I think that this learning platform is a perfect mix of that because you lowered the barrier to entry by creating these opportunities for others, regardless of their skill level, to learn how to create these experiences. From your perspective, how do you ensure that diverse skill levels and backgrounds benefit from the platform?
For us, it's super important to send a message that anyone who wants to jump into tech can jump to tech if they find the good learning resources that explain what they have to do and what they have to learn with their own vocabulary.
So based on my experience as a pro designer, I had to talk with a lot of different stakeholders when I was working for different companies, and I had to talk with the developer, but I also had to talk with the salesperson, and I also had to talk with the customer. So. Being able to change the level of vocabulary and the terms.
In order to get what I wanted, it was really important for me that when the developer was talking to the salesperson, maybe the developer didn't adapt the vocabulary to the salesperson and vice versa, and then there was no communication. So for me, it was really important to be able to just change that vocabulary.
And that was also one of the things that we were clear on since the beginning. We wanted to democratize technology for anyone who wants to jump in. I know sometimes technology sounds scary and it's super techy and I don't understand coding and so on. But there have also been a lot of different brands that have lowered the bar, as you mentioned, on how to start learning coding.
You don't need to be an XR creator. You don't need to be an XR developer. You just need to be excited about this. And then you can jump, you know? You will do it if you have good resources.
Outside of having external barriers to learning new things and having to overcome different obstacles and challenges, like, as you said, the technical super techie terms. There are also the internal obstacles that we have to overcome, too, right?
Of course. I'm not a creator, or I'm not a developer, or I'm not creative, you know, period. But I feel like as long as you're willing to learn and you're open to taking in the information, then really anything is possible. There are like two critical moments on a learning journey:
First is to find the motivation. If you have discovered StudyXR, it's because that motivation is there. You have searched and you have looked into what exactly is augmented reality? Oh, well, cool, I want to learn this, and that's how you ended up here. The second, tricky moment is to keep going. And that's why we have created challenges the way we have designed them. 10 minutes a day and you feel accomplished.
What are your future plans and aspirations for the platform? In terms of expanding its offerings or expanding on the impact that you've already had?
I mentioned that for us there are two big pillars, one knowledge sharing and the other one community. Of course, a lot of the communities on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, and so on, but we are also in the area of Web3. So for us it's really important that, yeah, we are on social media for anyone to find us, but building the spirit of community should be somewhere else. So, what is coming is a more specific community place where everyone is welcome and we can share knowledge from people that have created the challenges from other people that have done that challenge.
How do you foresee StudyXR evolving to stay at the forefront? I can only imagine that as time goes on, the demand for digestible information on how to build these experiences and learn these technologies is only going to increase.
Yes, definitely. That's a challenge that hopefully we will face because that will mean that we are doing great. As I said at a certain point in this interview, we don't own the knowledge. Our mission is to centralize knowledge. So anyone who wants to jump or who wants to evolve in their AR, VR, mixed reality career, they can find all the resources that they need, or at least a majority of that they need in our platform.
I'm not an expert on everything and I don't want to be. I can't. I don't have the time. I have my expertise that it's more towards a special design because of my background as UX, UI designer and so on. So why not have someone like Bella, for example, she's a super good digital fashion host.
How has extended reality and building StudyXR changed your career path?
My life has changed completely because I really believe in this and I saw the need and I saw how people could absorb all of that and all the love from everyone. So I'm really determined to go down this path and see what happens. I have full faith.
You can find Maria and StudyXR at @studyxr_ on Instagram and online at studyxr.webflow.io
