The Laws of Simplicity Applied to VR
8. Trust
In simplicity we trust.
Virtual presence will require new privacy standards. Trust will depend on a simpler mental model to clarify what’s private and what’s public.
Real life comes with basic privacy guarantees built in. When you are by yourself in your room, you know you are alone. If the door is shut and the windows closed, you know no one is watching. If you are watching a video on your phone and no one else is behind you, you trust no one else is seeing it. And if you choose to cast that video to the living room TV, you know that now everyone in the living room can see the exact same video. Unless you are being spied on or hacked, real life gives you a pretty clear understanding of what is private and what is public at all times. We live with a simple privacy model that we all understand and trust.
That is not necessarily true in VR. While platforms do provide certain privacy guarantees, applications can choose different ways to represent virtual presence. While on application A everyone present is represented with embodied avatars, application B can give this choice to each user, allowing a group of people to be represented differently, some embodied, some not. Apps also can choose how they handle their interfaces, privately or publicly, and have different ways to indicate the difference. It’s like every time you visit a different house you have no way to know if you are alone or with others, and if they are seeing the same things you are seeing. The complexity of having to deal with different mental models for privacy can make it hard for people to feel safe and trust.
I believe this will evolve rapidly when virtual presence capabilities are introduced at the platform level. Applications will likely have to adopt a single privacy model that is simple and clear to all users. First, you should always be able to see who is in a virtual room with you — no disembodied lurkers allowed. Second, interfaces should be private by default like a computer with a privacy screen on — no one around you can see it unless you intentionally choose to share. Third, what is shared publicly, is public to all. When you see a video being played on a public virtual display, you know all other avatars in the room can see it too.
Obviously there are other related complex challenges for platforms to handle — including identity and data sharing. But establishing a simple privacy mental model for presence in VR is key to building user’s confidence and trust. And while in many areas I’m bullish about creating VR-native standards, when it comes to virtual presence I believe that following well established real-life privacy rules is a great way to start.
The Laws of Simplicity Applied to VR
Introduction: Inspired by John Maeda’s Laws of Simplicity.
- Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
- Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
- Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity.
- Learn: Knowledge makes everything simple.
- Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other.
- Context: What lies on the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
- Emotion: More emotions are better than less.
- Trust: In simplicity we trust.
- Failure: Some things can never be made simple.
- The One: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.
