The feedback session was incredibly helpful, especially in terms of narrative structure, transitions and flow of the experience and inspirational projects and artists. Aiden Nelson and Greg Dorsainville were particularly helpful with some technical questions about project development and deployment in VR and problem solving creatively for the best outcome.

 

What do you need to change or develop to encourage your ideal interaction?

For my ideal interaction I need to develop the narrative voice and approach and work on the user experience. I have the narrative planned out with notes for the content, but I need to find a balance between accessibility and humanness and an overload of information and technical details. I want the experience to be engaging and spark interest in how space is represented digitally, and appeal to people interested in the topic whether or not they are familiar with the technology I’m discussing.

What additional research would help advance your project?

More research on UV scrolling and textures would help me with the smooth transitions between “rooms,” and Greg gave me some great resources to start with. Besides continued research into GUI’s and spatial interaction, I’m also going to focus on ways of displaying space in VR and speculative designs for 360 user interaction. I’m planning on purchasing Blortasia and joining VRchat as research on these VR experiences and the techniques different creators use to build their worlds.

Do you need to update your production timeline?

After speaking with Aiden about showing the project in the spring show, I realized that I need to start focusing on creating prototypes sooner rather than later. Through my discussions I also realized that as I focus in on particular topics for each “room” of the VR experience, the design and research will go hand in hand as I find the best way to present the topics.

What user testing do you have to do?

I want to do user testing through the browser and headset. Even though I received feedback that I should choose an installation type, I do want the project to be flexible and usable in both forms, even if the main and most accessible version is the web version. The interaction will also be time based, so if the user is wearing a headset the experience continues even if they don’t have controls. I’m already showing my friends my prototype for feedback, and thanks to the feedback session I have a few others I’m going to reach out to with a more complete prototype for feedback.