My first Make-athon #WeMakeRealities
I attended my first make-athon, We Make Realities Make-athon, on April 1st. Having a family it's hard to sign-up for a VR hackathon, the 50 hour weekend experience of sleep deprivation + creativity, isn't exactly conducive for kids. So this one day workshop experience was perfect for me to participate + contribute to the VR space!
If you're unfamiliar with a Make-athon, I was, WeMakeRealities explains a Make-athon as:
Unlike hackathons, our make-athons have no judging, prizes, or overnights. Just a day full of YOLO and trying new things with new people with the intent of sharing outcomes with rest of the community.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from the day, but if our workspace was any indicator it was bound to be an innovative day! We were all divided into diverse teams, each of us having representing a different role. A VR Creator, Communicator, Domain Expert and Researcher--I was on Team Owl (Whoo, Whoo!)
We were all tasked with coming up with solutions to the problem:
Social VR has the potential to change the way we connect, learn and create. We've seen some hesitation around social VR due to it's current nature. How might we design social VR worlds that are welcoming, safe and collaborative?
Part mini-conference, Part workshop
Eva guided us through a mediative exercise to kick-off the day --getting us all in the right head space to tackle such a complex problem. We heard from some really great speakers including Stephanie and Cliff from the Facebook Social VR Design team. They gave a good history of where we are now and where we came from. Cameron also gave us a good run down of of the steps they are taking to tackle VR harassment in Rec Room right now.
During the presentations we jotted down ideas on sticky notes "how might we..." statements to brainstorm later with our group.
- How might we solve social VR harrasement proactively?
- How might we solve for anonymity in VR?
- How might we rehabilitate offenders?
We're doing research, not playing!
Some of my team had never experienced Social VR before, so we conducted a gorilla ethnographic study, watching each other experience Rec Room for the first time. It was interesting watching my teammates learn how to teleport around and throw a ball. We did have some issues with our mic, so we couldn't really talk to the other "players" in the space, but we did try waving. (Interesting what gestures are universal.)
Unfortunately, about 20 minutes into the game member on our team did experience social VR "harassment." Another player had come up and put an orange bucket on her head, she couldn't see. At first she thought she'd run into a wall or something was wrong with the game, but once she figured it out she teleported away from the mischievous player, however he kept following her and attempted several more times to cover her face.
She just took her headset off, because she didn't know what to do and wanted to make it stop.
"I know it wasn't real, but I didn't like it."
That's what we were here to solve!
So what'd we come up with?
After much talk and deliberation of whether we tackle a proactive solution vs. a reactive one we finally started to narrow down our problem statement as:
How do we best use empathy as a prevention tool?
And in case the above sketch doesn't fully define our solution to the problem...
We think that it’s important to establish some sort of universal Code of Conduct (similar to Rec Rooms). This could maybe be done most easily platform by platform.
In our solutions we are recommending that Valve/Steam implement a system wide code of conduct for all it’s VR applications. (This would make it easier for developers building new apps, they could just plug these in as they need.)
Due to limited time, we didn’t brainstorm all of Steam’s new Code of Conduct, but focused on one:
- Be kind to each other (Be Awesome!)
The users were were targeting with this approach are trolls and newbies. Reinforce the Code of Conduct to trolls, and teach the Code of Conduct to new users. With the added benefit of putting all users into the right frame of mind before they begin an experience.
We suggest there be a loading room that demos the Code of Conduct through user interactions of characters, and walks existing users through one of the rules (Code of Conduct.)
For example, you would land in an empty room, with a bowl, a spoon and someone (something?) that looks hungry.
You are in this room while the game/experience you wish to enter is loading in the background. In order to make it through this room, you have to “be kind.”
If you pick up the spoon and feed the person you, are reminded of the Code of Conduct “Be kind to each other” and go directly into your game/experience.
If are not kind, perhaps throw the spoon at the person, you are reminded of the correct Code of Conduct before you enter.
Our thought is if you actually go through the motion (literally the physical motion) of being kind that will prime you for that behavior before you enter your environment.
You could also install a feedback loop. So for instance, a user is flagged as not following a Code of Conduct (being unkind.) The next time they log into that experience the specific Code of Conduct they didn't follow will be the one they much reenact to enter, helping to reinforce the rules.
360 pic of the entire group contributing to the #WeMakeRealities Make-athon
Team Owl in 3D