Meta Horizon Workrooms
VR Usability Analysis
🗓 Timeline: January 2024 - May 2024
🛠 Skills: UX Research, Heuristic Evaluation, VR Interaction, Usability Analysis, User Testing
🧰 Tools: Meta Quest Pro, Figma, Google Forms, Testing Studio
WHAT IS META HORIZON WORKROOMS?
Meta Horizon Workrooms, the virtual collaboration platform by Meta (formerly Facebook), was officially launched in August 2021 as a free application. It was part of Meta's broader push to create a "metaverse" for work, offering virtual meeting spaces in VR where users can interact in a more immersive environment.
Virtual Meetings
Meta Horizon Workrooms lets users meet in a virtual space, creating a more immersive and engaging experience.
Screen Sharing
Share presentations, documents, and other content seamlessly in the virtual meeting space.
Spatial Audio
Spatial audio places sound based on the speaker's location in the virtual room, creating a more natural flow.
Avatars
Personalized avatars to customize appearance like clothing, expressions, gestures for realistic interactions.
Desktop Support
Users without a VR headset can join Workrooms on desktop for meetings and collaboration in 2D interface.
Hand Tracking
Some level of hand tracking is available, allowing users to interact more naturally with virtual objects.
Virtual Screens
Add virtual screens to mirror your desktop, seamlessly displaying presentations and documents for everyone.
Whiteboard
A virtual whiteboard where participants can write, draw, and brainstorm together in real-time.
RESEARCH QUESTION
How intuitive, accessible, and efficient is Meta Horizon Workrooms for new users engaging in remote collaboration within a VR environment?
This question aims to uncover:
-
Are users able to complete basic tasks (join meeting, use whiteboard, interact with avatars)?
-
What usability problems make collaboration difficult?
-
How does the platform perform compared to user expectations?
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. The Future of Work: Do We Need Interactive Collaborative Offices?
This paper explores VR/AR in collaborative offices, focusing on Meta's Horizon Workrooms. It highlights benefits and challenges, emphasizing user-friendly and productive designs. Developers should prioritize simple interfaces and smooth workflows, recognizing task alignment's importance.
2. Teaching & Learning in Virtual Reality
Metaverse Classroom Exploration: This paper examines Horizon Workrooms for virtual classroom instruction, focusing on video conferencing, spatial audio, and app features to enhance student engagement. It provides design guidelines for effective virtual learning and encourages simplification of onboarding.
HEURISTIC EVALUATION
Used Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics to review interface elements.
Visibility of System Status
While the platform provides basic status cues (e.g., joining a room), users might still experience delays or avatar freezes without clear feedback.
Match Between System
& the Real World
While the virtual office metaphor is helpful, actions such as grabbing or drawing may feel unnatural to first-time users.
User Control & Freedom
Users can leave or teleport within a room, but accidental mis-clicks on UI elements often lack an undo option, leading to user frustration.
Recognition Rather Than Recall
Some key tools are hidden until the user performs a specific action (like gazing in a direction or opening a menu), increasing reliance on memory.
Flexibility & Efficiency of
Use
The platform caters well to beginners but lacks power-user features like shortcut gestures or customizable toolbars.
Help & Documentation
The absence of in-session help may leave new users at a disadvantage, often resulting in confusion and decreased efficiency later on.
USER TESTING & OUTCOMES
Participants performed tasks while narrating their thoughts. This captured confusion, navigation and points of friction.
📄
User Study Protocol
✅
Consent Form
📋
Pre-Test
Questionnaire
🧪
Think-Aloud Tasks
📝
Post-Test
Questionnaire
🗣️
User
Quotes
User Quotes
"It felt futuristic to collaborate in a virtual space, but the screen-sharing text was too small to read clearly. I wish I could zoom in or move closer."
"Joining the meeting was surprisingly easy, but setting up the headset and creating the profile initially took more time than I expected."
"I loved the head and hand tracking— it felt intuitive. However, the limited space and delays in screen sharing made it hard to fully collaborate."
"The avatar interactions were fun but felt a bit weird. It would be great if the avatars looked more realistic to make communication feel natural."
“The ability to interact as avatars was engaging, but communicating with avatars instead of real faces felt a bit awkward."
Participant Demographics
5
Total Participants
A diverse group of 3 males and 2 females participated in the study.
1
VR Experienced
Only one participant had prior experience experience with VR technology.
0
Motion Sickness
None of the participants reported issues issues with motion sickness.
Outcomes
100
Percentage
75
50
25
0
94%
90%
84%
88%
78%
86%
92%
90%
Set Up
Navigation
Interaction
Avatar Customization
Immersion
Collaboration
Communication
Overall Satisfaction
Based on user feedback from the Horizon Workrooms VR usability study, along with an analysis of current feature limitations, this study proposes a series of enhancements aimed at improving the overall user experience:
1. Adaptive Room Layouts
Problem: Limited flexibility in virtual meeting spaces.
Solution: Introduce AI-powered room layouts that automatically adjust based on the number of participants and meeting type (e.g., presentations, discussions, workshops), enhancing comfort and flow in collaborative environments.
2. Accessibility Features
Problem: Lack of features supporting users with disabilities.
Solution: Implement inclusive design elements such as voice navigation, closed captions, customizable contrast modes, and keyboard/controller alternatives to ensure a broader, more equitable user base can comfortably participate.
3. Real-time Translation
Problem: Language barriers in global, cross-functional meetings.
Solution: Integrate real-time voice and text translation to support multilingual collaboration. Subtitles or AI-generated transcripts can help bridge communication gaps for diverse teams.
4. Focus Mode
Problem: Visual and auditory distractions during virtual meetings.
Solution: Add a Focus Mode that minimizes background avatars, mutes non-active participants, and highlights the speaker or shared content. This would help improve attention and reduce cognitive overload.