Case study: Vera, how will youngsters manage their digital identity in the Metaverse
UX/UI Bootcamp’s group project The Bridge, 2022
I am what I am or what I would like to be?
This post has been written hand-in-hand with my team mates Paula Almécija and Rubén Muro, you can read their post in Spanish here and here
Vera is the resultant product of a group project from the UX/UI Product Design Bootcamp at The Bridge School where, over 12 weeks, we used everything we learnt.
On the basis of a situation derived from an scene such as the Metaverse and how identities will evolve in those digital environments, we came up with the incentive that drove us throughout our journey: “Am I what I am or what I would like to be?”
First of all, we carried out a broad research to discover everything related to the Metaverse and, secondly, we looked into the concept of identity, we tried to find out patterns of social relationships that could be echoed after the arrival of the digitization age.
By conducting user surveys and listening to a psychologist and a teacher, we obtained some insights that revealed our best option was designing an app with strong ethical foundations, to help and to walk with our users while they create their avatars for the Metaverse, with strong mental health protection measures to avoid problems derived from a bad digital identity management.
DISCOVERY
To read the bibliography go to the end of the post (in Spanish)
Understanding the problem
Nowadays we can explore metaverses full of personalized rooms. On this matter, the avatar has pretty much prominence. The opportunity to create alter egos without having to be linked to reality is already a fact. The design of these worlds will require new tools, professionals and methodologies. But, how to manage the different identities of a single user?
The first step in our investigation was no other than understanding the Metaverse: What is it? What is going to be? We needed to know in order to have a broader vision of the problem and the context in which we were going to work.
It’s something intangible and it doesn’t yet exist so any idea or concept are just assumptions, visionary thoughts and business proposals that, despite everything, gave us a list of characteristics about what they want it to be and what not rather than a detailed description:
The next step: identity
What is it? How will it be addressed in the Metaverse? What should we take into account for our project? The main features that we spotlighted, not just for our project but for the whole primary research, were: age, studies, identity expression and adjustment to the social environment.
It is expected that young people will start joining the Metaverse as young as 16 years old; although if we take a look to the users of the social networks, right away, we must expect the age to be closer to 12 or 13 yo; therefore, their experience in the Metaverse has a range as wide as going from a room to spend free time with friends and other users, to a videogame or a math or literature class.
If we focus exclusively on the expression of identity, we had to take into account not only the age of our future users, in full swing, but all those identities that may find in this new place a way to do it more freely.
With this given data we could establish the quandary to work with: How might we find a solution for the interoperability of the Metaverse and the expressions of identity that will be affected by it?
Survey results
With more than 100 participants, the results revealed that the vast majority belonged to what we would consider the main users of social networks: people aged 20 to 40.
We compared that data with the information we gathered after attending a talk on the Metaverse (given by Fernando Cano, from the company HAVAS); where we discover that the advertising campaigns in the Metaverse target people from 16 to 30 years old (43.6% of our respondents), despite that, he said we cannot forget the next generation, a forgotten target that is about to join the digital world.
There were a couple of answers that made us rise an eyebrow, they would be the source of some insights in the future and the core of the interviews we conducted.
The results seemed contradictory, but thanks to the interviewees we understood that although real and digital identity affect each other they are two different concepts.
These conclusions lead to a hypothesis, to reach the goal and to establish the target.
But first, we needed to stop and listen at what a psychologist and an educator/teacher were going to tell us about the tough handling of the identity
Interviews with experts
The first one was with Silvia Aparicio, a psychologist.
“Identity is a very complex concept, it’s composed of a ton of traits or characteristics. It is about someone’s self-concept and the interactions it has with the environment and the people in it. It has to do with personal tastes, habits, values and beliefs, behaviour… It is what makes us unique and different from others. On the other hand, digital identity is the image that we present on the Internet and the subjective interpretation that others make of it […] something that we can manipulate more easily”
This premise helped us to understand that there was no contradiction in our survey’s answers, just a reasonable response to the process of adaptation to a new environment.
When she spoke about how, according to Maslow’s pyramid, the need of belonging leads us to adapt to the surroundings (social networks are one as well) and to seek approval and recognition, we understood the mechanisms that lead to mental health disorders, those that already emerged in traditional social networks: digitized dysmorphia, dissatisfaction with the everyday -real- life, anxiety, depression, etc. and will do the same in the Metaverse.
We wanted to learn a bit more about Digitized Dysmorphia, that term resonated too much to be ignored and, luckily, our next interviewee was Verónica Vieites, teacher and founder of Proyecto Dislike
One of the most important issues we talk about in Proyecto Dislike is the consequences derived from the use of social networks’ filters, they make us see ourselves as normative and socially desired people but, eventually, causing a dissociation between the digital and the real images.
Youngsters want to be liked and desired, they will do whatever is necessary to gain followers. They will design their digital identity based on trends, no their real one. This is how the Aspirational Identity forms: What I am Vs. what I want to be.
A couple of essential insights came from those interviews:
💡 We must include every body type and genre in our digital product so there would be more options to choose and identify with.
💡 Users must be offered protection measures when navigating the Metaverse
Therefore, we had to work on making our users understand their avatars doesn’t define them as a human being, they can have as many avatars as they need or want, while offering the tools and security measures to help fight the problems this new environment may cause. This is how our hypothesis came about:
“If we design a tool to support and to advise while creating avatars for the meta spaces, then we will ensure a better mental health for the users because nowadays there are no means to fight problems derived from the use of social networks and digital identity management but we will provide them.
Goal
Iteration. We reformulated our starting question by adding new knowledge and insights:
“How might we help finding a better and healthier way to handle the expression of identity with regard to interoperability of the Metaverse?”
Getting to know our user
Our main target was Gen Z, although we didn’t want to forget about every person starting out in the Metaverse, we knew that those youngsters will be the most vulnerable due to their age, social networks exposure, their naivety, and they should be in the spotlight.
USER PERSONA
JOURNEY MAP AS IS
For a better understanding of our user experience we needed to see an avatar design process, the pains, gains and thoughts:
STRATEGY AND IDEATION
We reached the moment, it was time to get to know those involved in our product: the stakeholders, those that would point out what would be the distinctive trait and how to bring it to our users.
About our own identity…
Mission
To accompany and give advise on the designing of avatars, focusing on mental health care without restricting our users’ creativity.
Vision
We want to be used as the reference tool for the ethical, responsible and conscious creation and management of avatar(s) for the Metaverse.
Values
- Innovation
- Individualization
- Authenticity
- Confidentiality
- Compromise and responsibility
UPV
“Design the avatar that you can identify with”
Show us your personality with responsibility, taking care of your mental health
We accompany our users throughout their first steps in the Metaverse while creating avatars, always prioritizing their mental health but with no restriction to their creativity, thanks to a digital tool that gives constant advice and doesn’t forget the importance of helping them feel they belong whatever the context they are in.
Business model
- B2C platform
- Free download but with freemium option
- Incomes are from ads and premium subscriptions.
Defining our product
If we start from this premise: “Vera is 16 years old, her friends are playing in the Metaverse and she doesn’t want to be left out. She needs to design an avatar to interact with them, to feel she belongs and to feel she is accepted” What should offer our product?
As ideation technique we chose “How might we…?” and an “Affinity Map” to be able to work in our MoSCoW Canvas.
Our Product
Finally, we could define our product. We decided that it will be an APP & WEB to design avatars, based on gamification. Its differentiating feature will be a virtual assistant focused on the mental health care during both the design process and the experience in the Metaverse, giving tips and advice.
After a personality test, the users will be offered several customized avatar designs to choose from, according to their answers and observing inclusion and creativity values. The avatars, nonetheless, can be modified and testes in different environments.
Avatars will be used no matter the meta space chosen by the user, interoperability will be a must.
CONCEPTUALIZATION
Organization, structure, hierarchy… how to design and offer the best options for our users.
Let’s start with the sitemap; we needed to take into account that our users will interact with the app to design their avatars and, afterwards, jump into the Metaverse, for this reason, we created a “bubble” that will appear in the Metaverse, this way users will have easy access to our service.
Will this design work? A task flow and flowchart revealed the answer.
UI DESIGN. Giving Vera its own identity.
Logo
VERA comes from Latin and means “truthful”, the core of our proposal, avatars that our users can identify with, and are close to their own reality.
The logo blends three essential concepts:
- Care. It’s portrayed by the hands that at the same time form a V.
- The users, their profiles and identities.
- Creation and personal growth that will be taken care of.
Our logo is creation and care protected by an embrace.
Typography
First: Poppins, a friendly looking and easy to read font. Sans Serif, rounded and pretty nice for accessibility. It was chosen to be the main font.
To balance out we chose a Serif font for the headers: Bitter, a nice readable sidekick for Poppins:
Colours
We wanted to get away from the colours related to the Metaverse and bring the users closer to the mental health side that is such an important part of our product.
Pink hues bring fun, trendiness, warmth, candidness and delicacy, traits from the target we aim at.
VERA in the Metaverse
The “bubble”, the way for our product to be also in the Metaverse, it connect the app/web with the environment our users are interacting with.
It allows them to change between their designed avatars, according to their needs, to access adjustments panel or exit the app.
PROTOTYPE
Wanna see it? Click here
OUR CONCLUSIONS
About the product
We wanted VERA to be your companion throughout the path of designing and using avatars for the Metaverse.
Being aware and taking care of our users’ emotional well-being and mental health in relation with their identity was our motto.
Always there, giving tips and advice so the experience could be pleasant, unique and customized
About the project
The biggest challenge was to face and work something that has not been developed yet, intangible and uncertain: The Metaverse.
Despite the bunch of iterations at the beginning, we managed to overcome the difficult task and to be aware of the learning and knowledge acquired in the process, which would not have been possible if we had not worked as a great team.
