Supporting Sonic Interaction in Creative, Shared Virtual Environments

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines user experience design for collaborative music making in shared virtual environments (SVEs). Whilst SVEs have been extensively researched for many application domains including education, entertainment, work and training, there is limited research on the creative aspects. This results in many unanswered design questions such as how to design the user experience without being detrimental to the creative output, and how to design spatial configurations to support both individual creativity and collaboration. Here, we explore multi-modal approaches to supporting creativity in collaborative music making in SVEs. We outline an SVE, LeMo, which allows two people to create music collaboratively. We then present two studies; the first explores how free-form visual 3D annotations instead of spoken communication can support collaborative composition processes and human–human interaction. Five classes of use of annotation were identified in the study, three of which are particularly relevant to the future design of sonic interactions in virtual environments. The second study used a modified version of LeMo to test the support for a creative collaboration of two different spatial audio settings, which according to the results, changed participants’ behaviour and affected their collaboration. Finally, design implications for the auditory design of SVEs focusing on supporting creative collaboration are given.