Giving directions in virtual reality: Resources for managing fragmented perception

• Fractured ecologies impact how participants formulate and follow instructions. • Direction-giving is adapted to the affordances and constraints of the VR app. • Documents interactional work for achieving shared reference and spatial orientation. • Users establish shared reference via avatar-simulated embodiment. Interaction in Virtual Reality (VR) environments can be challenging when spatial orientation between participants is not mutually shared. In this paper, we use Conversation Analysis to explore how such fragmented ecologies impact the way that participants formulate and follow instructions during a way-finding activity. The data consist of video- and screen-recordings of three playtesters moving around for the first time in Wander, a place-based VR app which allows users to explore a virtual representation of the real world via Google Street View. We focus on sequences in which one participant provides directions to guide the others from one virtual location to another. Our analysis shows how participants expand and adapt their direction-giving practices as they come to understand the affordances and constraints of the technology. Unlike in the physical world, shared reference and spatial orientation in VR cannot be assumed, and our analysis reveals the preparative work that enables participants to give directions in this fractured ecology. We also show how participants discover potential resources for dealing with this via affordances, such as avatar-simulated embodiment. The study offers insight into how instructions are shaped by the (dis)embodied and virtual nature of the environment. It also contributes to a deeper understanding of how individuals negotiate shared perception in virtual space.