What’s the metaverse? Well…

It was decided that the best place to discuss what on earth the metaverse is, isn’t, and should be, was in a cold and windy concrete space (definitely no outdoor heaters here) at Clerkenwell Design Week on Wednesday. 

In a talk called ‘When Digital Met Physical’ a super-informed panel of experts, including Caroline Jacob from Seymourpowell who has worked on designing an actual spaceship (yes!), shared their views on how to describe the metaverse, their hopes for its future and our responsibilities as designers working in this field to create something better (and less toxic) in the digital space than we have right now. It’s a big responsibility. There was one clear theme the panel kept coming back to: empathetic design. Ensuring that we help create a space that allows for security, good mental health and the allowance of free will. 

That all sounds great. But seriously, what IS the metaverse?

There are many (often varying) descriptions of what the metaverse really is. My favourite descriptions, given by the CDW speakers, were that ‘it’s an evolution of the current internet with a 3D layer on top’, and ‘an embodied internet’. Not that scary. And, as it turns out, not that new. In the gaming world, 3D has been standard for a couple of decades, with varying degrees of reality.

However, with the ultra-fast processing we now have, we can use the embodied digital world to design and experience complex products and environments in real-time. And whilst the way we currently interact with that 3D world is relatively clunky (screens, keyboards, VR headsets etc.), the panel were all anticipating a tech leap soon to more intuitive interfaces such as wearables or entirely immersive rooms built with the Metaverse in mind.

So I guess the metaverse is…what we have now. But better and faster. And with further futuristic capabilities (generally first imagined in the sci-fi genre) we always dreamed of. And maybe with smells too. To make it more real, apparently.

Oh, and it will be accessible to everyone, regardless of ability, wealth, or geography. That’s a HUGE ask, and one that the panel relished the opportunity to take on in our role as designers working in and on this new field – indeed, they were all adamant that it is the responsibility of designers to make sure this new digital reality avoids the mistakes of the current one.

And when conversation turned to which realm we’ll inhabit as designers and consumers, there was a very pragmatic view from the panel. They agreed that the future shouldn’t be an all-or-nothing choice: we might choose to do some things – like work or play – in the metaverse, do others only in the real world, and do some in a mixed reality of both. Each version of reality will (or should) complement the other. These two realities working in tandem should help us to cultivate a greater experience than could ever exist through only embracing one form. 

So how should we view the Metaverse? As long as we do everything we can as designers and consumers not to make it the Meta-worse (thanks to the panel for that one!) it should be transformative for us in our work and in our leisure. 

Now, I need to work on my avatar…

The ‘When Digital Met Physical’ panel was made up of Caroline Jacob, CMF Design Strategist at Seymourpowell, Aofie Challis, Creative Strategist at NewTerritory and Liam Hamill, Principal Growth and Strategy at Venturethree. It was chaired by Tim Smith, Digital and Creative Tech Designer