Metaverse & User Experience
But first, some words..
Web Technologies
In order to understand the concept of the Metaverse, first let’s take a look at the evolutionary stages of the Internet. The Internet has entered our lives in it’s most primitive form, called Web 1.0. We can say that in Web 1.0, which has a static structure, users only act as readers. This is due to the fact that information is transmitted only unilaterally. Users cannot interfere with the information, they only read the information and exit the content environment. However, as the need for information exchange increased, the concept of interaction quickly came into prominence. Thus, a new technology called Web 2.0 was born, which attaches importance to user interactions with a rich online environment.
Examples of today’s Web 2.0 technologies are softwares such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. In Web 2.0 technology, information is controlled by central powers. For instance Facebook, every posts that we see they all reach us through a certain control, filtering algorithms. This means that they can close our accounts at any time they want.
What is the Web 3.0 anyway? In it’s most basic form, Web 3.0 technology, unlike Web 2.0, refers to the Decentralized and Peer-to-Peer structured state of the Internet, completely based on Blockchains.
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With Web 3.0, information can be transferred in a mutual way without third parties. This technology has many benefits, such as preventing companies like Facebook and Instagram from collecting and processing our personal data and creating perceptions to sell more products with various algorithms, as well as selling the raw version of our personal data to third-party companies. The sustainability of Web 3.0 platforms is assumed by the users who are involved in it, that is, the owners. Thus, a person has sovereignty over his own data and digital assets!
What is Metaverse ?
With Web 3.0, the concepts of Metaverse, NFT, Crypto Coins, DApp and DIFI began to emerge. The Metaverse, which means Beyond the Universe, was first depicted by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his novel Parasite as “A virtual shared space with a collective and physical continuity connected to the World” [2].
Just like in the novel, today we can define the concept of the Metaverse as a parallel digital universe connected to our physical world through multiple digital technologies. With these parallel environments, we can create our own avatar and get various experiences. We can build a land on these environments or rent them! Moreover, innovative activities such as taking the online shopping experience to other levels, attending concerts of world-famous artists, virtualization of the office environment can also be conducted.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, aims to take casual office working experience to the Metaverse level with the virtual office technology. His 20% of employees have already logged into this virtual world to perform their work activities.
Zuckerberg describes the Horizon Workrooms project as “A pretty amazing experience where you feel like you’re really there with your coworkers”.
Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert was one of the fascinating Metaverse meetings. The activity has attracted the attention of a fairly large audience who want to get acquainted with a new technology. It also appears as a good alternative for artists who are unable to perform due to the pandemic situations.
Brands such as Adidas, Nike, Zara, H&M have taken quite stunning steps in order to offer a shopping experience in Metaverse. The H&M store offered by Ceek, allows us to have shopping with coins.
User Experience in Metaverse
User experience is very important for any technology product to enter the main market and to combat with other big brands. Although the Metaverse seems exciting with the 3D experience it offers, it’s fair to say that it actually has a long way to go in terms of user experience. The necessary equipment is not suitable for everyone’s budget, and also bring many difficulties from an ergonomic point of view. So we may ask ourselves the following question. Do we prefer to sit 8 hours as well as in a traditional office working environment or do we prefer to work with a device that is switched on our heads for 8 hours?
With the research conducted by Weforum [1], the user experiences of the leading Metaverse universes (The Sandbox, Horizon Worlds, Decentraland, Mona, Cryptovoxels, Somnium, Roblox, Rec Room, Spatial VRChat) were evaluated in 6 phases. Based on the data in the table, we can say that awareness in this field is not as high as we want. The proposed solution for this is expressed as promotional films or free trials. One negative effect is that the installation is too complicated. At this point, process optimizations can be an effective solution.
The first impression is very critical for the user due to factors such as easy access to content. At this point, technological improvements, customized user interfaces can be a good solution. After the metaverse audit, there is a point that still retains it’s significance. Environment needs users to be highly motivated and come back to experience the Metaverse over again. The way to do this is through good relationships. Finally, environment should remove of difficulties in interacting with other users and making contributions. Sharing networks, forums can be quite effective at this point.
The fact that Metaverse is a multidisciplinary system and it is a combination of many technologies (AI, VR, AR, Blockchain) it requires enterprise hardware, GPU and a large amount of computing power to decode the content and environments it promises. In a very large universe, every element needs to be graphically optimized. That means we need 12 times further processing power of today’s partial Metaverse example called ,Second Life. This confirms the fact that the necessary hardware expenditures will increase.
There are risks of universes to born with a bad user experience that can appear with uncontrolled content that produced by users. It is difficult to control all of this because we assume that there will be a decentralized administration. At this point, it seems highly likely that Metaverse standards will be needed , such as software lifecycle or usability standards to guide us and be a part of the innovations.
References
[2] Metaverse-Terry WINTERS
