Designing Safe Spaces for Virtual Reality

Fellow Facebook AR/VR Experiences Design Team member Andrea Zeller (Content Strategist) and I recently wrote a chapter for an upcoming book on design ethics. The article instructs VR practitioners on how to fold consent ideology and body sovereignty into their VR design practice in order to foster safer, more inclusive virtual spaces and interactions.

The book is currently available for pre-order and will ship in February 2020

Facebook Research Preview: Designing Safe Spaces for Virtual Reality
(See below for the paper’s abstract and citation).

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Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) designers accept the ethical responsibilities of removing a user’s entire world and superseding it with a fabricated reality. These unique immersive design challenges are intensified when virtual experiences become public and socially-driven. As female-identifying VR designers in 2018, we see an opportunity to fold the language of consent into the design practice of virtual reality—as a means to design safe, accessible, virtual spaces.

Chapter from: DeRosa, Andrew, and Laura Scherling, eds (2020), Ethics in Design and Communication: Critical Perspectives, London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Publication available in 2020.

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As part of continued distribution of this research, we’ve been touring conferences internationally to discuss the process and inspiration behind the chapter.