Challenge: How can MURAL use VR technology to foster meaningful collaboration and co-presence in virtual environments, addressing the growing need for immersive teamwork tools in the remote work era?
Hypothesis: If MURAL designs immersive VR environments and workflows for collaboration, it will enhance team connection, productivity, and engagement beyond traditional tools, paving the way for the future of virtual work.
MURAL set out to explore immersive VR technology as a new frontier for collaboration and team facilitation. Faced with a disconnection between traditional methods of collaboration and the evolving demands of remote teamwork, the team wanted to test how VR could create more meaningful, engaging experiences. With Meta's Quest platform as the foundation, the challenge was to design, test, and validate how virtual environments could enhance collaborative presence, storytelling, and problem-solving. The aim was to create a seamless blend of facilitation techniques and immersive experiences to better engage teams and solve problems remotely.
The solution began with a two-week public "Collaborative Frontiers" jam, where participants designed VR experiences centered on teamwork and collaboration. This event was hosted in Meta's Horizon Worlds, with participants using MURAL, Discord, and VR as their collaborative tools. MURAL provided participants with a "Collaboration Enrichment Center" to teach VR modeling and world-building techniques, easing the learning curve and fostering engagement. A space-themed narrative tied the experience together, featuring natural team formation via spatial organization, interactive storytelling, and immersive experiences like the Fireside Asteroid event. The facilitation used visual cues and environmental storytelling to encourage movement, collaboration, and idea generation in a new 3D environment.
The event demonstrated how immersive presence technologies, such as VR, can revolutionize the future of remote collaboration by creating experiences where participants feel a strong sense of presence and connection. The experiment validated that VR is not just a technical playground but a platform for more effective and engaging teamwork. Attendees gained tangible VR skills while exploring how environments can drive engagement and collaboration. The lessons learned paved the way for future exploration of immersive collaboration technologies at MURAL, showcasing the potential for blending 2D and 3D tools in professional settings. The event advanced MURAL's understanding of how to leverage VR for collaborative intelligence and immersive facilitation.
Words