From: Peter Rothman Subject: Re: HUMAN-FACTORS: Immersion Studies Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 00:57:22 -0700 Message-ID: <3260A0E2.4633@metatools.com> Organization: MetaTools, inc. Tim Poston wrote: > > Not while it depended on skilled operators who could use Morse Code > fast, there couldn't. The technology asked too much of the user. But > "never was"? What is e-mail but a `personal telegraph'? In many ways > preferable to voice phone (asynchrony is often convenient), and even > to voice mail. > Exactly my point Tim. Ever tried to install and maintain a VR system? How many different power adapters are required for a simple PC based VR system? (answer: at least 4) How many power strips do you need? What about keeping a VR system up and running for extended periods in a public space? How about an SGI Challenge? A DIS network? (I know you have done some of these things Tim, these are rhetorical questions) Compare this to a television set or a telephone... The focus on high end/industrial applications running on specialized workstations is much like the dependency on "skilled operators who could use Morse Code fast". My point was that *in theory* everyone could have learned to use Morse Code in the same way we learn to type on something as inconvenient as a QWERTY keyboard. In the case of Morse Code, that didn't happen because it was difficult and there eventually was a better alternative. At least the telegraph had a consistent interface metaphor (Morse Code and the usual entry device). Can the VR community claim the same? How do we navigate, pick up and manipulate objects, interact with others? After nearly ten years these questions remain the topic of research and debate. IMHO we haven't come very far except in sheer computing performance. When we pick up a telephone, we expect to hear the dial tone instantaneously or we consider the phone to be "malfunctioning". Will VR technology ever live up to its promised ease of use, touted "invisible interface" (or as Brenda Laurel calls it NFI -- no f**cking interface), and create deeply immersive shared environments? Or will it be replaced by some alternative technology which is more compelling, easy to use, and which provides instantanteous feedback to its users without requiring specialized training? There are people developing technologies which are quickly absorbing the mindspace, research and development dollars, and retail dollars that might have gone towards VR technologies (network computers, embedded/ubiquitous computers, the Web, Intranets, etc.) Whatever we might like to believe this diversion/redirection of attention and money matters. Today, there are essentially no VR systems in everyday use by individuals outside of large organizations. There simply is nothing useful to do with them (except play games of course, and even these are often better without the HMD). Even if there was something useful to do, it takes extensive expertise to set up, employ, and maintain a VR system. I believe that unless the VR community actively seeks "consumer" oriented characterisics, VR technology will soon be only a research tool for academia, government, and industry. And eventually it will become a merely a historical anachronism, rather than the ultimate human computer interface we all believe it can be. These aren't technological problems (some one could have built a "user friendly interface to the telegraph, but they didn't) they are problems with the focus of our research and development efforts, the quality of the products we produce, and the usefulness of the total solutions our VR systems provide. Peter Rothman prothman@metatools.com