Nick's Project 2 Reflection

Summary

• I chose to use WebXR for the second project because of its ease of set up (only requires opening the web browser) and its ability to give me lower-level control over simple collaborative features.

• A-Frame’s performance and graphics quality on the Quest is noticeably worse compared to native apps and desktop apps, but the ease of set up is unmatched.

• A-Frame has a large open-source community of custom components, integrations, and plugins.

• Many open-source plugins have been discontinued and abandoned multiple years ago.

• Feedback from the second project showed that collaborative features were once again most important. The improvements in collaborative features from the first project resulted in much higher satisfaction overall.

• Even with these collaborative features, the top suggested features for the future remained to be more collaborative features rather than features related to data visualization. Voice chat and annotation were recommended higher than bar graphs on maps.

Feedback Analysis

Most users found the keyboard/mouse interface to be intuitive.  Some respondents commented that the desktop controls were not as satisfying as “the smooth world of VR” and others were bothered by a bug in the hyperlink portals that sometimes resulted in accidental navigation. The average score given was 7.625/10.

VR controls were found to be slightly preferred on average, earning an average score of 8/10.  Most users were very satisfied with these VR controls.  One user suggested adding the ability to control vertical flight to get a better view of the whole environment.  One other user said that they felt a little bit of motion sickness resulting from the smooth joystick locomotion.

The most useful collaboration feature was the user avatars.  Being able to easily identify other users in VR with nametags and distinct colors was an essential feature for being able to tell who is who.

Even with these collaborative features, the top suggested features for the future remained to be more collaborative features rather than features related to data visualization. Voice chat and annotation were recommended higher than bar graphs on maps.  Respondents noted that these collaborative features would make the app feel more like a shared collaborative space since basic communication and information sharing is the priority.

Though bar graphs were general favored to dot plots and 2D ground maps, most respondents were left somewhat unsatisfied with these three options since many felt that these representations would be more useful on a 2D screen than they were in VR.  Bar graphs spread over a 2D space, like a map, could liven up the data viz for VR.