Project VR Groovy

Prof. Dr. Bernd Fröhlich
Prof. Dr. Eva Hornecker
M.Sc. Anton Lammert
M.Sc. Laura Simon
M.Sc. Rosa van Koningsbruggen

Often, groups of friends live all over Germany, couples are in long-distance relationships, or grandparents live far away from their grandchildren. While it is possible to spend time together in video conferences, this is perceived as a shared experience only to a limited extent. Social virtual reality offers more extensive possibilities for this. But how can interaction that conveys social closeness be further improved in virtual space?

Although social VR allows for shared experiences, such experiences are often limited by not providing precise temporal synchronisation. As a result, activities such as singing, dancing or virtual games can be perceived as non-synchronous experiences and users can literally feel out of sync.

In this project, we will utilise different prototyping and development approaches to investigate what effects can occur when social interactions are out of sync and how the feeling of shared synchronous experiences can be increased. For this purpose, we would like to investigate, among other things, how responsive environments or avatar designs that motivate movement could be used for such purposes.

Step by step, we will identify difficulties during social interactions in latency affected environments and develop concepts to foster a shared sense of synchrony, which will then be implemented and evaluated.

This course is perfect for students who would like to be challenged to find problems, who enjoy individual and (multi-disciplinary) group-work, and to come up with their own concepts. We encourage students to participate that have a high interest in working from theory, coming up with speculative concepts, and learning how to realise those concepts as an artefact.

The final assessment of your work will be conducted based on the project contributions of every team member, including:

• Quality and innovation of your practical results
• Active participation in the project during and in between weekly meetings
• Intermediate and final project presentations
• Documentation