A VR Introspective
I was literally transported. The closest thing to it, I imagine, would be an out-of-body experience. I am here, but I am not here; it’s complete sensory hacking.
Riley Florence, a friend and fellow UX wizard, brought his Oculus Rift into the office to let our design team try it out. I had used Google Cardboard before and I had read about VR, but I was not prepared for what I experienced…
An unexpected drawback of putting on the VR headset, was the utter isolation I felt. In hindsight, I suppose it should have been obvious: “you’re putting a black box over your head. You’re going to feel alone.”, but didn’t occur to me at the time because I had been physically surrounded by people.
As soon as I put on the headset, I couldn’t see my hands or anything. I could hear co-workers talking behind me in the distance, but it was as if they were trying to communicate with me from another room. I was alone. No one was there to comfort me when I got scared, lost, or confused.
A lot of trust is required when doing VR with others in the room. It’s like being blindfolded at a party and everyone’s watching you make a fool out of yourself.
A Glimmer of Light
The Oculus Touch’s First Contact onboarding was impressive! It taught me the basic touch controls in a safe, digital space. I was taught simple things like using the triggers to point and grip. It took me a while to figure out that the controllers were touch-sensitive as well as pressable, which caused me some confusion.
After this initial tutorial, I was then placed in a more realistic space to apply the skills I had just learned. This new environment was magically nostalgic to my generation who grew up at the cusp of the 80’s and 90's, blowing on NES cartridges and watching Flight of the Navigator and Tron. I was allowed to enter this Stranger Things world and I didn’t want to leave. In fact, I was kind of angry when I discovered that it had ended. I wanted to know what this little robot and I were going to do together next! We had developed a friendly relationship even in the short time we had together.
Sidebar: If you’re interested in how the Oculus Rex team came to design this unique onboarding experience, they did a very insightful retrospective presentation where they talk about what they learned along the way, what worked, and what didn’t work. Watch it here (42 min).
Panic and Peril
Toward the end of First Contact, I was teased with a toy gun in my hand. I shot darts around the small environment. The logical next step is to get some heavier artillary and blow something up. For that, I booted up the critically-acclaimed first-person shooter Robo Recall. To me, this was Time Crisis on steroids, very fun, and brought me closer to the edge of my seat than any other arcade game I’ve ever played.
Epic Games nailed the Chappie-esque art direction. The graphics and world were pretty darn incredible.
I could not convince my brain that I wasn’t actually there.
This was a frightening notion especially in the beginning of the game when you’re surrounded by robots but without guns in your hands.
Sidebar: Personal space is apparently a big deal for me because I was way out of my comfort zone any time any digital personage stood too close to me. This is something I discovered about myself being put in these fabricated situations. I’m sure, in the case of Robo Recall, this was absolutely intentional to make me uneasy from the get-go.
After just a few minutes of action, I felt like a jarhead, I was so hyped up on adrenaline. Out of courtesy to the next player, I used my shirt to wipe the sweat off the controllers. I’ve played first person shooters before (Unreal Tournament, Bioshock, Quake, etc.) It never felt like this before.
I think they could have done a better job teaching me some of the basic controls in the beginning. The teleportation mechanism didn’t make sense to me until it was explained to me post-VR. Understanding it in-game would have helped me feel less like a sitting duck all of the time.
Post-VR Debrief
After lifting off the headset, I had forgotten where I was. There was some minor disorientation. I had no sense of how long I had been in the Rift.
In a strange way, after lifting off the headset, it almost felt like I was entering a new, higher-definition VR experience, “real life”.
It’s fascinating how different it feels on the inside compared to watching others on a monitor from the outside. From the inside, I can’t help from engaging with the story and reacting to sounds and movement. From the oustide, the games look just like any other game on any other console, pretty boring.
Should I get one?
Personally, I can’t see myself playing VR regularly until there are more social aspects to it with other real people. Being absolutely alone was not comfortable to me. Am I a wuss or does everyone feel this way when in VR? Even in Pixar-style short film I watched, Henry, I found myself longing to hear others laugh and react to what I was seeing.
I want someone co-experiencing this with me.
This article may come across as more negative than positive about VR, and it’s true that I am wary of how it could affect people. However, I do see it as an incredible tool with vast potential for good.
I see its potential to educate and share experiences, building bridges of understanding and empathy. In the 360 short film The People’s House, I was able to sit down and meet Barack and Michelle Obama. With Google Earth, I travelled to places I will never physically visit. I could feel the staggering potential for good if only developers and designers seize the opportunity.
