From: Rob Moser <moser@mirv.comms.unsw.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: PHIL: What makes VR an addictive, or compelling, medium?
Date: 24 Nov 1995 06:24:40 GMT
Message-ID: <493of8$2m1@mirv.unsw.edu.au>
Organization: Dept of Comp Sci & Eng, Uni Of NSW, Oz


From: Rob Moser <moser@mirv.comms.unsw.EDU.AU>

In article <sandre.7.0013B7A8@asc.upenn.edu> sandre@asc.upenn.edu (Alison Andrews) writes:

>It has struck me that the virtual world, though currently available at
>far below its ultimate application potential, could be engineered
>explicitly to be addictive, or, in less incendiary terms,
>intrinsically motivating (internally rewarding).  

I think this is two different questions altogether; intrinsically
motivating does not addictive make.  Since it is the latter that
interests me, I'll talk about this aspect.

>For example, its' interactivity and level of control and feedback are
>directly connected to notions of intrinsically motivating experiences.
>Are there other aspects of VR design that have as much affect in this
>way?  

With VR, as a technology, I think you've covered it pretty well; the
high level of directness in the interaction, both control and
feedback, tend to make systems which use VR very engaging.  However,
there is a wider picture at issue here.  VR is an interface
technology.  In designing an intrinsically motivating environment, one
of the issues is the directness of control, and this technology
fulfills these requirements extremely effectively... but there are
other issues as well.  These would include other ideas drawn from
theories of engagement: the range and impact of choices available to
the user in that environment, for instance.  Most of these other
issues go beyond the interface technology to the content of the
virtual world and how it is designed - and wether or not you {want} to
make it engaging.

As an example, consider the idea of a file system.  An engaging way to
map this to a VR system might be to make the user engage in some kind
of a quest for their data, or even just to rely on beauty and novelty
and map your files to the books in a fully rendered virtual library.
Yet few people would want to use such a system on a day-to-day basis,
as a traditional text system would be much more efficient and easy to
use - traits much more highly valued in file systems than engagement.

The question becomes, then, what sorts of tasks would you want to use
an intrinsically motivating environment for?  When you know more about
the content, then you can take steps to design engaging virtual worlds
to map to these tasks.

	- rob.