Bad Breakdowns, Useful Seams, and Face Slapping: Analysis of VR Fails on YouTube

Author

Emily Dao, Andreea Muresan, Kasper Hornbæk, Jarrod Knibbe, CHI 2021

Keywords

Virtual Reality, VR Fails, VR Breakdowns

WHAT

  • Types of VR Fails

  • Causes of VR Fails

  • Impact on VR Design

WHY

  • Understand when breakdowns occur

  • Reveal how the seams between VR use and the social and physical setting emerge

HOW

  • Video searching

    • search item “VR fails”

    • Inclusion and Exclusion

  • Video Content Analysis

    • Coding scheme

    • Inter-rater reliability

    • Coding video with dimensions

Results

  • Fails definition

    • the point of greatest reaction by the audience

    • the moment of intersection between the player and their physical surrounds

  • Type of fails

    • Colliding

    • Hiting

    • Falling Over

    • Excessive Reaction

    • Covering

    • Other

  • Cause of fails

    • Fear

    • Sensori-motor Mismatch

    • Obstacles in the Real World

    • Crowd Participation

    • False Signifiers

    • Setup Failure

    • No Cause

  • Spectator Interaction

    • Laughing and screaming

    • Expressing empathy and concern

    • Active help and support

  • Discussion

    • Players treat the environment as a fully-supported real-world space

    • The existence of a social contract associated with VR-play

    • Fails are experienced only by the spectators

    • Future work

Design Implication

  • Preventing Collisions

    • Changing the Play Space

    • Changing the Game

  • New Interactions

    • Enable ‘peek-through’ or ‘scaredy-cat’ mode

  • Spectator Engagement

    • Increasing Spectator Awareness

Discussion

  • VR Outside the Lab

  • Avoiding Breakdowns

  • Designing from Fails

  • Limitations