Photo by Sound On: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-a-long-sleeve-shirt-wearing-black-vr-goggles-3761137/

You have seen the headlines “Meta begging workers to use its metaverse” and “meta lays off workers”. A lot of this is attributed to the slow reception of the Metaverse. Which was what everyone was talking about when announced in October of last year.

Jump to a year later the “Metaverse” is barely a thing, I have never used or known anyone who has used the metaverse. Take that with a grain of salt though as I don’t have 1500 bucks to drop on the new Meta Quest Pro VR headset and I know a total of 3 people. However, from what I have seen from my research Meta isn’t hitting on much right now.

Experts themselves are split on the whole idea with 54% saying by 2040 the metaverse will be amazing and 46% saying it will be a dud. Read that year again…. that’s right 2040 a whopping 18 years from now. I will be 50 years old in 2040 I’m not going to give a dam about virtual reality by then.

So why has this been a major problem so far for one of the biggest tech companies in the world? I can’t give you a definitive answer, but I believe that Meta forgot this fundamental element of people.

Humans are Social Creatures

As designers, the one thing that gets hammered into our minds from the start is user-centered design. You are not designing for what you want you are designing for people while striving to achieve organizational goals.

You don’t need a degree in psychology but understanding human behavior will take you far as a UX designer. One thing we all know is that people are social creatures, even the most introverted of us need some type of connection.

Meta knows this they created Facebook. However, I believe they underestimated how much people need to interact with the physical world. Instead of developing a product for people Meta developed their Metaverse around an ideal.

Design for the people

To avoid this mistake, understand that you are developing for people who differ from one another. Yes, we create personas based on our target audience, but anyone outside of that audience should be able to use your product with no problems.

Be aware of biases like a false consensus bias, just because you like it, and your dog likes it does not mean Old Bob Two Toes will like it. When doing user research when you think you have enough then you need to do more research.

I know research is not the most exciting thing in the world (no offense UX researchers we can’t create awesome products without you) but extra data will help you make better decisions.

In a Nutshell

I know that there is way more that has gone into the whole Metaverse issue, and who am I to question a tech giant like Meta? I understand progressive thinking, always trying to be on the bleeding edge of what’s new.

That is what made Mark Zuckerberg so much money in the first place. We can’t lose perspective though when pushing into new frontiers. I know Zuck isn’t human but humans use his products. I’m never getting a job at Meta after that last joke lol.

As always thanks for the read and I hope all is well. Pilahuk