RecRoom:
Empowering the VR game community to self-regulate and control negative behavior
Problem
Prevent bullying and harassment within a virtual reality game without slowing down the game itself by contacting administrators or engaging with the bully.
Solution
Use a natural gesture that does not copy any of the standard sports-specific movements that communicated indifference and can freeze antagonist.Did not require any additional UI enhancements or need for oversight.
Talk to the hand
Instead of going into the control panel and simulating a keyboard or a traditional interface, users only had to do what came naturally to them.
Who wouldn’t like the chutzpah to be able to raise a hand in the face of life’s most annoying bullies?
This simple action brought up a contextual menu that allowed the player to shut off the audio from the troll and report them to the game admins.
User feedback
Common sense
over UI
“Just add another tab.”
The original solution suggested by the client was to add another section to the already cluttered control panel that would add censoring ability. This increased cognitive load and took away from gameplay. It’s one thing to be annoyed by an obnoxious player, it’s another thing trying to find the right button to report them.
