Miro in Virtual Reality?

I have absolutely no idea @Clinton Keith , but I have a Valve Index headset and would be a test subject for something like this in a heartbeat. Miro VR? Yes please!

Hi @Clinton Keith ,     

did you develop the Unity App yourself ?    I would be very interested to see Miro in VR

thanks.

For me it's a nobrainer that tools like Miro will have to enter the VR or AR market at some point in the future. Also looking forward to development there.

But even displaying Miro in a VR space with most of the existing functionality for interaction would be a great step forward. Can you share how you accessed Miro in Unity? Can a n00b like me manage that as well? ':)

I had this on our feature list for a funded innovation project early 2020. But you cannot do something like this without the buy-in of Miro, so I wrote Jeffrey Randorf. But unfortunately, he didn’t reply (only a short “how can I help you” and then nothing more). 

There are so many B2B VR Meeting solutions out there (Spatial, The Wild, Arthur, MeetinVR, Glue, just to name a few) so I guess it will just be a matter of time before someone picks up this idea.

@Tim Wiegel I guess that @Clinton Keith does not have a “Miro VR” app, just “some” App like the ones I mentioned above. Browser in VR is kind of standard these days for VR meetings. But what we (met too!) are really looking for is something haptic which synchronizes into a Miro board for “mixed mode” meetings (some VR participants, some Browser-users).

One vote from me (because I don’t have more than one ;-))

Cheers,

Christian

FOLLOOOOWWWWWIIIIINGGGG with much anticipation. I was just having this discussion today with one of my clients about how good it would be to have a virtual retrospective on the whole years worth of business development and design done inside one board. Hit me up if you need testers.

@Zeke Condon note that having retrospectives in VR are already possible (meetinVR, Arthur, spatial, glue, the wild etc.) - it is just that they are not integrated with miro. But I simply love miro (like many others) so I feel an integration of miro and VR could be a game changer in collaboration - especially in times where pandamic is causing lock-downs etc.

Not surprised at the volume of queries on this… Googled it myself and found this thread ;)

I use Miro as one of my main productivity and collab tools, especially with my team to fully working from home this year.

I’m more than happy to participate in some UX research, testing to help make this happen!

We have just achieved connecting to the JIRA API with Oculus Quest headsets. Now we are ready to try miro - anybody with a Quest who wants to get involved?

Sure thing, I have a quest 2. Any other requirements? Thanks for trying this out! 

@londoner99 some requirements I will DM you, but the real requirement is that we need to connect to the miro API which we did not start yet. But now we have a reason to start! 

I used the “Dream” app for Oculus Rift with some success using digital whiteboard tools - but it looks like that app isn’t available for Quest. I also have Quest 2 headset and would be interested in the possibilities of using a tool like Miro in VR :)

@Luke Perman as mentioned earlier, we are still working on finalizing the JIRA interface for VR and since we are doing this in our slack time, it will still take a couple of weeks. I am currently evaluating ways to get some budget from somewhere to speed up the process but in the mean time we could do some requirements analysis here in this thread, what do you think?
 

My main vision for a miro VR integration is to really create a new, 3-dimensional UI. I know that simply integrating a multiuser-browser would be a low-hanging fruit but that’s not taking advantage of the VR superpowers we have on hand. So what I am really looking for is one or more metaphors that allow translating the miro widgets into a 3D experience. Here’s my initial thoughts - feedback welcome:

frames

Many presentations I have seen are based on a collection of frames representing the context for a topic. Everything related to the  topic is put inside the frame and for the next topic, the users would proceed to the next frame. This reminds me of walking trough different rooms of an exhibition. So I would suggest that every frame that sits directly on the miro canvas represents a room in VR. So in a way your frame setup on a miro board is a room plan of a building.

frames in frames

sometimes it is required to structure a frame even more so people use a frame within a frame. I am thinking of these like a table on which smaller exhibits can be placed. One aspect I like about this metaphor is that if you lock a frame to prevent users from accidently changing its content, it maps nicely to converting the table into a glass cabinet :-)

sticky notes

This one is tricky. sticky notes are probably the most frequently used widgets in miro but I don’t want to take the easy way to convert a sticky note into a sticky note - just because everybody does it and I want to push the limits of a VR interface. Also, it might look arkward if a sticky note will sit in the middle of the air if there is no wall to attach it to. One thing is for sure: you don’t want to type in VR so we need speech recogntion (which should not be an issue). However, I am still looking for a bright idea for the geometry of sticky notes which holds the text. Maybe it should depend on the container? A sticky note in a room is like a display stand or rollup. A sticky note on a table is like a name plate. A sticky note on another object is … well … maybe simply a sticky note!

shapes

This looks easy - shapes can easily be translated into 3D objects - a circle becomes a sphere, a square becomes a cube, a triangle becomes a pyramid etc. However, I am not very shure how objects are used in miro so maybe someone has a better idea?

Moderator tools

Many valuable features in miro are not about what you can place on the board but how you can work on the board. Particularly showing the cursors of all attendees of a joint miro session is what revolutionized the online meetings if you ask me. Features like following other users or “bring everyone to me” round off the collaborative experience - and we really need this in a multiuser VR experience, right? Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an API to access the position of users so we could sync cursors of “2D attendees” with the x and y coordinates of VR attendees which would be a prerequisite to unleash the full power of miro in VR. But I am optimistic that miro will support us in finding a solution provided we come up with some POC implementation of the above things.

hygiene factors

Finally, we need to take care of data security, identity and access management and privacy. This is a major concern, not only in Europe but particularly here. Although I am very aware about this crucial success criterion, I would dare to ignore it for a proof of concept. I am deeply convinced that these “hygiene factors” are all addressable and are just a matter of time and money - both critical ressources for us at this point So yes - we are considering this but no - it will not be implemented very soon.

Now its up to you - what do you think about my ideas? Do you have others? Or maybe some entirely different vison about miro in VR? Very much looking forward for feedback!

Cheers, Christian
 

Hi Christian,

sounds ambitious but very good. I guess we could even start with a less sophisticated approach by providing solutions resembling the digital whiteboard in VR. Might be “boring” but combined with Miro’s super powers in 2D it already would be very convincing I guess. 

“Just” provide an interface for vectorising drawings and perhaps create text from handwriting / speech. 

I guess this would be really added value…

Kind regards

Sebastian 

Hi Sebastian!
Digital Whiteboards in VR are available as inworld-browsers in every second Social VR application. And one of the beauties of miro is the (almost) endless space which contradicts with a limited whiteboard area. I understand your point but we will not go this way because it does not contribute to our vision.

Regards,

Christian

Christian, have a bunch of Oculus for Business Quest 2 devices for me and my team so I would love to have the entire team participate in this. Are applications still (or already) open? 

Hi Rob,

yeah, sure! We are currently still busy integrating JIRA, so miro integration at this stage is just in the ideation phase. I am wondering how we can generate a bit more traction because just with our slack time, this will take a few months to years and I would really like to accelerate it. 

I could apply for some venture capital (maybe even from miro itself, but I am in touch with local VCs as well). Can you share more insights about what you would want to do with it?

Cheers,
Christian

Hi Christian,

offcourse I can try to highlight what I want to do with it. We have invested quite some time and efforts (hence costs) in preparing workshop content based on Miro boards. It would be great to have these boards and content available in a VR setting, so we could ideate and collaborate using the native VR possiblities (hand controls, immersive sound etc) to interact with each other, the Miro boards and the sticky notes. If that is not feasible, I would have to turn my attention to recreating the content natively within any VR office/collaboration platform that provides a whiteboard (almost all of them) and work from within that platform. But that would limit me to using that platform only for my workshops.

Understood. Why would you want to use these boards in VR? Is it just because you “have a bunch of Oculus for Business Quest 2 devices for you and your team” or is there any other reason you are keen on doing it with the extra hassle of wearing headsets?

You might guess that I have a suspicion, but I want to get in confirmed by asking this question ;-)

Hahaha… I get your drift. No, this is “not just because”, but solely since we have experienced that remote workshops using 2D collaboration tools during pandemic times did not deliver the expected quality of output and lacked the true customer engagement we need during the delivery…. VR might solve these shortcomings

… exactly what I thought. So let’s develop this idea further. As mentioned earlier, we have already integrated JIRA so I know we can connect any Web API to a VR interface. What we need is a good concept and some developers. I doubt that miro as a company will do anything before this idea is not upvoted. So lets see what we can do about it. First, we should merge the two ideas (get the votes from there to here): https://community.miro.com/wish-list-32/create-a-miro-app-for-the-oculus-platform-3530?postid=19474#post19474

If we want to do it without miro, we need some investor. Ideas?

We run virtual events and coach corporates and startups, I‘d be very interested in this exploration phase. If something comes to fruition finding investors is no biggie. Would be interested to join any initiative on the subject.

Hi all!

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but just wanted to inform you that the newest update of Glue VR collaboration platform now supports third-party apps including miro! Our company uses the oculus, glue and miro on a daily basis for work and will now be exploring miro inside VR as well. 

https://glue.work/2021/06/10/new-glue-supports-third-party-apps-like-slack-office-365-and-google-workspace-and-brings-more-avatar-goodness/

So far it seems to support miro within a similar browser/desktop format, rather than on a large wall outside a frame. Let’s see if that changes in the future :)

@Marieke Just like JIRA in VR - a flat (2D) integration is not what I am looking for. A true 3D User Interface is what I have in mind!

Miro is entering virtual reality! 

We’re excited to announce that as of today, Miro is one of the first 2D apps available for Meta Quest 2. With our new 2D app, bring your Miro board into your Horizon Home dashboard to brainstorm, workshop, and diagram with ease.

A world of creative possibilities awaits! Try it out!
https://lnkd.in/g6ncvTZK