#VirtualReality #EmotionalIntelligence #XRDevelopment
At The Coven, we’ve spent the past 4+ years staffing cutting-edge XR projects at one of the world’s largest social media and headset manufacturing companies. During this time, we’ve learned a few things about what makes a good XR developer, including emotional intelligence. This article describes the ideal XR prototyper’s main traits and explains why emotional intelligence is critical to success.
XR’s Superpower: Access to the Emotion Centers of the Brain
With the recent boom of XR headsets finding their way to consumer markets, the race to find “killer” use cases for this new technology is on. However, we are finding that the greatest value of XR has been in plain sight since the first VR devices were engineered back in the 1960s.
The main breakthrough of XR devices is based on the combination of stereo vision and head tracking, which together create a compelling enough simulation of physical presence that is capable of bypassing some of the critical, conscious processing layers of the mind, fooling us into “believing” that we are there.
This sense of immersive presence allows parts of the brain that are not usually active when interacting with a digital system to turn on. Some of these brain centers include the amygdala, which is involved in emotions and forming emotional memories, and the hypothalamus, which is also involved in forming memories.
The superpower of XR is its ability to elicit conscious and subconscious emotional responses, which in turn can impact memories, behavior patterns, and even physiological response patterns. This is all consistent with the uncanny success VR applications have had in treating phobias, PTSD, and anxiety disorders, as well as in education and training.
XR Prototyping and Design
Before we go on, let’s discuss prototypers and why their skills are important. Prototyping is the quickest way to validate the most impactful assumptions regarding design, and while it usually involves coding, it is actually more of a design exercise. Physical sensations and emotions, which play into XR’s superpower, are an important part of the signals to elicit through a prototype.
Prototyping is a form of development in which the emphasis is on validating assumptions rather than generating production code. When prototyping, developers are more free to choose tools to validate an idea or assumption as efficiently as possible. Prototypes are often throw-away in that even when they succeed at validating a design, they may need to be rewritten in a production stack. In XR development, most applications are likely to benefit from rapid prototyping.
Design tools are in their infancy when confronted with the richness and complexity of the design space that XR applications expose. As a result of the immature state of the design standards and tools, the design process requires a lot more trial and error than other platforms such as web or mobile.
When designers can’t create design mockups themselves because the functionality being tested is complex–as it often is in immersive experiences–designers need to lean on developers and prototypers to produce functional prototypes that can be used to validate design ideas.
So, what makes a good XR prototyper? Strong technical abilities are vital, which include coding, the ability to set up scenes quickly in a game engine or other 3D authoring environment, and the skills of a technical artist to create 3D models, animations, and shaders.
However, the most important skills do not stop there. Skilled prototype developers also have design sensitivity that ties in with emotional intelligence, which we’ll discuss in a moment. Design sensitivity includes the ability to interpret their reactions to different experiences and turn them into design directions, as well as empathize with different user types and design experiences that they are likely to enjoy.
While the superpower of XR has manifested itself in some well-known use cases, such as the treatment of phobias and education, it seems reasonable to argue that most new and existing applications being ported to XR platforms will have to deal with the opportunities and perils of having the primitive brain involved in their use.
Effective designers and prototypers across the board need to master a wide range of design aspects ranging from ergonomic to psychological. The psychological end of this range relates more closely to XR’s unique advantage with respect to other mediums and is thus the focus of this article.
The XR Prototyper’s Superpower: Emotional Intelligence
According to the Harvard Online Business School, emotional intelligence is “the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you.” Because XR depends so heavily on the feelings and emotions evoked, developers must have a solid understanding of their emotions and viewpoints and those of the end users. So, how does that factor into the XR design process?
5 Ways Emotional Intelligence Helps the XR Design Process
Here are five ways in which emotional intelligence is helpful in the process of XR design and prototyping:
- User-Centered Design: Emotional intelligence allows designers to understand better and anticipate users’ needs and emotional responses. This understanding is crucial for creating XR applications that are technologically advanced, genuinely engaging, and comfortable for users across diverse backgrounds and needs.
- Empathy and User Experience: Empathy, which involves understanding others’ emotions and perspectives, is a key component of emotional intelligence. In development, empathy enables creators to design experiences that resonate with users on an emotional level, enhancing the realism and impact of virtual environments. For instance, empathy can guide the creation of VR experiences used in therapy, education, or social interaction, ensuring they are sensitive to users’ psychological and emotional states.
- Collaboration and Team Dynamics: XR projects often require collaboration across various disciplines, including designers, developers, content creators, and project managers. Emotional intelligence fosters better communication and collaboration among team members, enabling a more cohesive and efficient development process.
- Ethical Considerations: XR developers with high emotional intelligence are more likely to consider the ethical implications of their designs, such as user privacy, consent, and the psychological impacts of immersive technologies. This is essential in guiding responsible design choices that prioritize user welfare.
- Adaptability and Problem-Solving: Emotional intelligence involves self-awareness and self-regulation, crucial for XR developers to navigate complex, often unpredictable challenges. Managing emotions and remaining flexible helps teams stay focused and productive under pressure.
Emotional Intelligence Leads to Excellence
Whether developing a new application that only makes sense in XR or porting an old application to XR, design considerations and opportunities related to the emotional impact of the user experience will have to be considered. Even in transactional apps like Excel, projects will benefit from examining the emotional factors of the user experience closely.
Dealing with highly subjective experiences modulated by sensorial and emotional reactions and the more mechanical challenges of XR (e.g., 3D interaction, combining virtual with real, and the absence of traditional input devices such as keyboard and mouse) presents a new landscape for designers. In this landscape, user empathy and understanding of subjective reactions and emotions are far more relevant than ever in software development, and emotional intelligence is the foundation for success.
The less uncertainty there is in the design process, i.e. the more design can rely on understood patterns and best practices, the longer the design/development cycles can be. The level of uncertainty in the design process usually warrants very short development cycles with a greater probability of having to throw away code based on a design failure. These short cycles involving design and development put great pressure on the communication and coordination between designers and developers and increase the duration and cost of projects, another area where emotional intelligence is critical.
However, designers who know how to code or developers who can make sound design decisions are incredibly valuable as XR prototypers. By consolidating the whole design-develop process into a single brain, the communication and coordination overhead gets canceled out, increasing the process’s efficiency tremendously.
Conclusion
While every project is unique, and the specific design challenges are hard to generalize, we see that emotional intelligence is an incredibly valuable trait for designers of XR experiences. Given the early stages of design standards in XR, quick iteration through prototyping is one of the best ways to accomplish comfortable, engaging, and impactful experiences. The prototyper role as a technical artist or a developer with design sense and high emotional intelligence is crucial in optimizing the product iteration time.
Contact us at The Coven today if you want to staff an XR project with highly skilled wizards with technical, design and emotional intelligence. Let us handle the searching, vetting, and hiring so you can benefit from quick turnarounds on the headache-free formation of temporary or temp-to-perm teams.
#VRPrototyping #VRDevelopment #VRSkills #MixedReality #MR #MRLearning #XR #Talent #EI #VR #AugmentedReality #AR #VREmpathy
