Understanding the role of virtual mobility on how and what people create in virtual reality
Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) is considered a compelling tool to foster creativity by allowing its users to create in 3D space. However, the challenge lies in understanding how people use these tools and what they create, hindering the drawing of meaningful conclusions about VR as a viable tool for creativity. Furthermore, past research has shown that contextual factors shape how people create within VR, suggesting the existence of other factors. Here, we analyze the 3D creations of 137 participants responding to different creativity activities across seven sessions on a social VR platform. Specifically, we evaluate the role of virtual mobility, the capacity to move freely or have restricted movement in virtual space. We additionally present a VR-specific creativity coding scheme that follows recommendations from previous literature. Using dimensions derived from this coding scheme, we examine how these dimensions relate to behaviors and features of the creations in the context of virtual mobility. Results showed the significant role of virtual mobility on the design process, such that participants iterated and revised more by deleting more when their avatars were allowed to teleport and translate freely, compared to when their avatar’s movements were restricted to sitting down in virtual chairs. Furthermore, participants built shorter creations and took up less projection space with restricted virtual mobility. Results also showed that participants created more practical, unique, and well-implemented creations the more 3D models they used. Similarly, the more participants deleted, the more well-implemented the creations were. We discuss implications for designers of creation-oriented VR platforms and pedagogy for instructors facilitating activities in educational contexts.