VR Design Guidelines from Physical Space Experts
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. — Henry David Thoreau
Social Virtual Reality platforms are working to generate engaging experiences that draw people in and motivate them to return. It led me to wonder— what are the core elements what make humans feeling comfortable and stimulated and turns them into repeat visitors?
To answer that question, I gave demos of social VR platforms to nine experts of spatial & social experience design and then asked them for their impressions. What did they like? Did they feel welcomed? What was challenging for them? Were they interested in returning?
For all participants, it was their first or second time in social VR. They also represented a range of technical savvy. One person works at a AR company, and another is a 3D artist. However, others work in restaurants where they talk with strangers all night long.
Collectively, those nine people (3 architects, 3 restaurant owners, 2 retailers and 1 interior designer) have 123 years of professional experience in spatial & experience design.
Overall, what I learned from interviewing these virtuosos is that they fully understood how a digital world could fully map onto and replace physical world experiences. They saw the potential for a virtual world to improve on the places and experiences that they currently craft.
However, they also saw the gaps between that potential and existing Social VR worlds. Many of them don’t know (or care) about the technical constraints. They asked for things like being able to make eye contact, having built-in AI’s everywhere all the time, and photo-realistic graphics.
This is virtual reality — I want it to look real.
I’m going to share the research insights from these interviews in a series of blog posts here. It will cover everything from the importance of details (lighting, audio design, and texture choices), to giving people a purpose/goal, and what made spaces feel private.
Below is one example of what to expect in this research series.
Many of these experts had a language around space that I think many VR creators can benefit from applying to their own work. The interior designer discussed how a space type creates a social expectation. Kitchens have one social expectation. Bathrooms have different social expectations. Bedrooms have their own as well.
So when this interior designer accidentally teleported into a bedroom in a social VR platform, she was unnerved:
I stumbled into that room and had no idea how to leave. I thought, ‘I should be leaving right now. It’s someone’s bedroom.’ In real life, you’d be like: ‘Oh my god I’m so sorry I just walked into your bedroom and went to your desk and started grabbing things.’”
She contrasted that experience of accidentally arriving into a strange man’s bedroom with departing my office in Portland:
I could walk a really long way and there is no way I am going to stumble into someone’s bedroom.
She likes the idea of exploration and discovery of new places, but in order for it to be comfortable, there needs to be context:
Sometimes you come upon one and thing, that’s delightful, it’s so different. But you don’t stumble into them, especially not in a way where you can’t get back.
I’m looking forward to sharing more from these experts and hope that all VR creators can apply these insights in the work. And if nothing else, you will learn what makes the perfect nightclub in virtual reality. They all had opinions on that.
Part 2: OWN THE NARRATIVE OF YOUR VIRTUAL SPACE
Part 3: WHO IS THIS SPACE FOR?
Part 4: PLACE CREATES RULES OF BEHAVIOR
Part 5: CONTEXT IS COMFORTING
Part 6: NEW PEOPLE WANT TO BE HOSTED IN SOCIAL VR
Part 7: RETAIL IN VR: WHAT MAKES A GOOD SHOPPING EXPERIENCE
Part 8: THE IMPORTANCE OF DETAIL IN VIRTUAL SPACES
Part 9: RECOMMENDATIONS ON VR ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (Part 1)
Part 10: RECOMMENDATIONS ON VR ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (Part 2)
Part 11: HEY, WHERE’S THE MUSIC?: SOUND DESIGN AND ITS USER IMPACT
