I am speaking to you now from inside the meta-verse
I am writing this part of the blog sat in a virtual meeting room in Meta’s Horizon workrooms. I have it connected to my Mac and I’m using the voice dictation feature in the Mac to create the text. So I am literally speaking to you now from the meta verse. Frankly I was given to believe that the meta verse would be more exciting, it’s not exactly Snowcrash. (which having re-read it as a grown up is probably for the best )
I think the lack of excitement however is more due to the fact that we have become very used to the fantastic being a day-to-day reality. The acceptance of VR, speech to text and AI as being relatively normal part of our existence would have been proof to my younger, 2000 A.D. reading self that I had in fact arrived in the science fiction future. I’m not going to give any judgement on its dystopian or utopian nature.
The fact that many of these things have become if not mundane then at least believable is pertinent to the issue about the use of virtual reality in design. Long story short, if it’s not a useful tool the novelty will wear off pretty quickly. I’m currently doing a literature review for a research proposal looking at the use of virtual reality in higher education and in particular its use in design education. Many of the articles speaking in favour of the use of VR make a big deal of learner engagement.
I have however not found (as yet) any long-term studies that look at the continued usage of VR in the education environment and examine whether or not this increased level of engagement persists beyond the novelty period. The benefits of immersion are clear in the use of the system but I think that is a separate issue to the issue of engagement.
I’m of a generation old enough to remember the novelty effect of the teacher bringing a slide projector into the classroom situation to show us some Irish language slides. I remember a fairly vividly the projector and the pictures the pictures of a girl and a boy and a dog playing with a ball. I was very engaged, not sure I learned much Irish.
So to analyse the project proposal I sat down with my new best friend\existential threat and created a mind map of the State of the art, pros and cons and the potential research questions associated with the use of virtual reality in design education.
I produced by asking it to create the mind map using OPML script and on each iteration ask it to expand a particular section of the map. Very useful mechanism to create headings to start with in the exploration of the topic. The obvious question is who is leading who here?
Here is an example of some of the generated script which I copied out into sublime and then uploaded into XMind (use your mind mapping software of choice).
<opml version="1.0"%3E
<head>
<title>Challenges and Limitations</title>
</head>
<body>
<outline text="Challenges and Limitations">
<outline text="Cost and Accessibility">
<outline text="Hardware Costs"/>
<outline text="Software Licensing"/>
<outline text="Infrastructure and Maintenance"/>
<outline text="Digital Divide"/>
</outline>
<outline text="Technical Issues">
<outline text="Hardware Compatibility"/>
<outline text="Software Bugs and Glitches"/>
<outline text="Network and Connectivity Issues"/>
<outline text="User Interface and Navigation Challenges"/>
</outline>
<outline text="Adoption and Integration">
<outline text="Faculty Training and Support"/>
<outline text="Curriculum Design and Development"/>
<outline text="Student Onboarding and Familiarization"/>
<outline text="Resistance to Change"/>
</outline>
<outline text="Health and Safety Concerns">
<outline text="Motion Sickness"/>
<outline text="Visual Strain"/>
<outline text="Physical Discomfort"/>
<outline text="Privacy and Security"/>
</outline>
<outline text="Evaluation and Assessment">
<outline text="Measuring Learning Outcomes"/>
<outline text="Developing Assessment Tools"/>
<outline text="Data Collection and Analysis"/>
<outline text="Comparing XR to Traditional Methods"/>
</outline>
</outline>
</body>
</opml>
So.. thats not scary at all.
It works, but can I stick it?
Back to the whole VR and Meta Quest 2 . The other big challenge beyond the utility of the tool is it comfort in use. There is at the moment no getting away from the fact that the headsets are not super comfortable and also trying to work with small details such as text or any detail design element does result in a certain degree of eyestrain. I think the next generation with ultra bright mini led displays and pancake optics will clinch it. To which point that’s enough for the moment.
Brief Moments of Clarity 
Leave a comment