March 18, 2019
Our brief time at SXSW has made our group enlightened of what is a good session and what isn’t. Some panels are great about presenting current technologies and addressing feedback from the audience, while other panels address subjects and concerns that don’t quite match the description of their session. After attending a couple of panels, my group decided to check out the trade show. The expo itself did not have too many VR tables, compared to other technologies, but the ones present were unique and interesting. The first table we found focused on aiding physical therapy. I tried out their “game” and while I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, there were some noticeable flaws. The two main issues were vision and the controller. The game required the player to run on a treadmill to progress his scooter rider. While this was fun, once I decided I wanted to win and began sprinting my goggles fogged up quickly. As for the controllers, they were generally unresponsive. Trying out professionally designed VR experiences and being able to recognize problem areas in their programming and user interface is a great way to learn how to troubleshoot our own designs. Overall, this surprisingly large conference is quite informational and I am excited for the next few days of exploration.
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