Meta Reality Labs
Improving Accessibility for Metaverse Creation
In the summer of 2022, I joined Meta Reality Labs as a product design intern, working on Horizon Worlds - a multiplayer VR metaverse platform. As a part of the Assistant Platform team, my mission was to improve metaverse creation by utilizing voice interactions.
This project is under NDA. Please reach out if you want to learn more about my work.
This project is under NDA. Please reach out if you want to learn more about my work.
Timeline
3 months
Role
Product Designer Intern
Type
VR Design • Conversation Design
A multimodal approach to building in VR
In 12 weeks, I designed and pitched a multimodal feature to improve world creation in Horizon - a combination of conversational interactions and visual design. Shiny prototypes and mockup screens are one thing, but where I learned the most was polishing interaction flows, reaching out to the wonderful talented people near me for their expertise, understanding unavoidable constraints, and delivering a feasible start of a vision that could be easily expanded upon.
My Impact
Communicating multimodal interactions
I designed a solution combining conversational interactions and visual design. To effectively communicate the strengths of both aspects to stakeholders, I created proofs of concept with Figma, After Effects, and internal VR tools.
Connecting cross-functional teams
Meeting with people adjacent to my team was invaluable in grasping my area of focus quickly. This also revealed opportunities for me to tackle related needs of other teams - such as expanding design systems to show voice interactions.
Leaving a solid foundation
Although my 12-week internship did not leave me enough time to fully hand off my project, I strategically built out keystone features and a project roadmap to follow to ensure the greatest chance of my work being continued.
Personal Takeaways
Communicating personal ambitions
My original internship scope focused solely on designing conversational interactions, but I also wanted to dive into visual product design. By communicating my goals with my team and the potential impact of expanding my scope, I utilized two interaction modalities to create much more compelling solutions.
Advocating for my worth
I joined a platform team that helped main product teams find opportunities to tackle unmet user needs using voice interactions. Suggesting additions to a busy roadmap is a tough sell, but it taught me to concisely communicate the worth of my work in solving these user needs from an outside perspective.
People people people!
I learned an incredible amount from seeking feedback from my team members, exploring product feature timelines with cross-functional teams, and even jumping into hackathon projects with colleagues! Endless gratitude to my fellow intern cohort and team Metamates.