Lucid experience – Tanisha's portfolio

ux case study

Speculating a ‘protopian’ virtual future using emerging tech

Experiential prototype for a VR concierge experience

Role:

Director & Designer

Type:

Personal Project

Timeline :

3 months (2022)

Project Summary

Envisioning virtual spaces that empower people and protect them from unregulated and triggering content with wellness as a core value

Key Takeaways

Speculative and protopian take on navigating in virtual spaces

An exploration in self-censorship while using emerging tech in a meaningful way

Empowerment through decentralised and self-ownership of data

Opportunity Space

An unsolicited virtual experience

“Once you’re actually embodied in a space, even though you can’t be physically touched, we can be exposed to things that take on a level of realism that could be psychologically assaulting.”

~ Albert “Skip” Rizzo
director for medical virtual reality at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies

Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that minors were regularly exposed to graphic sexual content, racist and violent language, bullying and other forms of harassment on VRChat

The Challenge

Can we make an emotionally intelligent virtual assistant that guards physical, mental, emotional and psychological health?

Potential Solutions

Attempts by Decentraland

‘Profanity Filter’ – censors swear words and other sensitive content.

Block or report a player – is an afterthought

Design Vision

A virtual concierge experience that acts as a second consciousness of a person. It is meant to be a barrier between problematic content and a person that may not recover from it.

Bio-HCI

Interfacing with the human body and using bodily signals as communication.

Voice Interface

Primary interaction through voice commands provides a conversational experience

Safety & privacy

Responsible use of tech with a central focus on privacy and ownership of sensitive data.

Rapid Prototyping

The virtual concierge might look like..., work like... and feel like...

Ideation

Fork in the road: censorship vs boundaries

The episode “Arkangel” from Netflix’s “Black Mirror” demonstrated how the censorship setting on the app stunted a little girl’s development.

Even though the episode was an extreme case, it helped me realize that the experience would benefit from being self-tracking and self-censorship model instead. It can help bring about positive behavioral changes while always letting the person be in control of their data and their experience.

User Research

Here’s Angie for example...

Angie is a high school student who occasionally engages with the virtual world. They suffer from anxiety and are triggered by violence and graphic representation of violence. Their happy place is anything with puppies.