How do you actually search inside a metaverse recording? The question sounds technical, but it is first and foremost a question for the users: what do people want to find in such collections – and how do they go about it?
We investigated that in a field study. The results are now out in Information Research.
The starting point
Metaverse Recordings (MVRs) are a young, still barely examined medium type in Multimedia Information Retrieval. There was simply no basis for understanding how users want to work with such recordings. So we asked.
The method
The study is built on qualitative expert interviews. From the responses we derived application scenarios and retrieval challenges and analysed them for patterns. One focus was on two data types that turned out to be central:
- time-series data generated during graphical rendering
- data from the associated input and output devices
What came out of it
The study identifies existing application scenarios, confirms the need to capture these specific data types during retrieval, and stresses how important user-tailored retrieval systems are. That yields concrete requirements for the design of such systems.
To me this is the most interesting part of the work: it is a contribution to foundational understanding. Before building systems for a new medium type, you should know what people actually search for in it.
The paper
Steinert, P.; Mischkies, J.; Wagenpfeil, S.; Frommholz, I.; Hemmje, M.L. “Information need in metaverse recordings – A field study”. Information Research, an International Electronic Journal, 31(1), 226–246. Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0.
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31163020
An earlier version of this work was already available as a preprint on arXiv in 2024 (arXiv:2411.09053). The version just published is the peer-reviewed journal article.