UC Santa Cruz

Virtual Reality (VR)-based social platforms, such as VR Chat, heavily rely on thirdpartycontent creators that sometimes reference the VR-inefficient design approaches of real-life venues without fully considering VR-specific design modifications. This project proposes that additional architectural design and spacing modifications should be implemented in the development of Social Virtual Reality Environments (SVRE) to further facilitate and improve social interactions in VR-based social platforms. The findings from this study indicate that open-space hotspot (OSH)-based design implementations in SVREs can improve VR social interaction and user experience by facilitating open-spaced grouped formations (OSGF), which are essentially a type of user formation catalyst for VR social interactions.