Understanding the ways in which a technology can be misused is an important part of designing ethical technologies. In this workshop we will break into groups to conduct a design jam with a focus on designing XR for evil, exploring the myriad of ways that XR technologies could be used dangerously or unethically.

Elin Björling is a Senior Research Scientist in Human Centered Design & Engineering at UW as well as a Clinical Faculty Researcher in the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at UW-Tacoma. Over the past two decades, Elin has studied adolescent health utilizing mixed-methods and new technologies from a participatory design perspective.

Mobile augmented reality is a rapidly emerging technology that has the power to change how we understand and interact with our environment. In this design jam style workshop attendees will learn basic AR principals, examine current and future use cases, and ideate with fellow attendees on how this technology can make our communities more sustainable, just and livable places for all.

Julia Beabout, PE, is Director of Design at Novaby, a global digital art production company specializing in 3D visualization and mobile augmented reality (AR). She has 20+ years of experience leading customers and organizations through complex strategic initiatives and creative projects up to $200 million, from concept through completion, in the virtual and physical worlds. As a leading practitioner in AR Placemaking for public spaces, she has spoken at the MIT Media Lab and for the U.S. State Department on the subject, and is passionate about projects at the intersection of arts, tech, humanities and social justice. She has a degree in architectural engineering from Penn State University and a Master’s degree in Asian studies from Florida International University in Miami.
Susan Oldham is a UX designer and researcher focusing on virtual and augmented environments and designing technologies for public spaces. Susan is currently UX/UI designer for the OnSightAR app at Novaby. As co-founder of the XR Design Salon, Susan hosts a monthly meetup for designers, researchers, devs and VR/AR/MR enthusiasts to workshop and discuss concepts central to user-centered design, research, storytelling, cognition and collaboration vital to designing usable immersive realities. Susan has a BS in Informatics/HCI from the UW iSchool, and is an alum of the MS Human Centered Design & Engineering program.

XR technologies offer myriad possibilities for education, but their classroom use is made difficult by conditions unique to each educational context such as classroom space, existing group work structures, and students' familiarity with and ability to use XR technologies. In this session, we will explore these limitations and then work together to design educational XR applications in your choice of subject area which mitigate and even capitalize upon these conditions to create positive and inclusive learning experiences.

Jared Canright (he/him) is a third-year Ph.D. student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the University of Washington Physics Education Research Group examining the applications of XR technologies to physics education. He currently focuses on teaching introductory electromagnetism using VR and content-agnostic refinement of best practices for classroom implementations of VR technologies. He moonlights as a science communicator at the Pacific Science Center, a conference organizer for Out in STEM, and a hobbyist game designer for himself.

This session will be a discussion forum building off of the material discussed in Dr. Bernard Kress's keynote. Specifically, we will discuss the hardware design implications of various optical architectures for augmented reality, and then link those hardware design implications to the impact on experience design for mixed reality HMDs.

Ishan Chatterjee is Hardware Architect at Microsoft HoloLens investigating novel optical and system architectures for augmented reality applications. Prior to that, he was an electrical engineer on the HoloLens 1 and 2 products. He is also a graduate researcher in the Ubiquitous Computing Lab at University of Washington building novel interaction devices for spatial computing platforms.

Strong uses of VR and AR in k12 education have been mostly limited to students learning to create and develop in VR. EdTech conferences are filled with hopeful demonstrations of flashy uses of XR in education with little evidence of added benefit because of the technology. With the lowering costs, untethering of XR hardware and continued growth in content development, XR in education has the potential to begin working toward meaningful use in the classroom. That leaves the questions: "What are best future uses of VR in the classroom that outperform the values traditional video and 3D animation add to the classroom?" and "What user requirements are unique to the classroom setting?"

Jess Pilsner is an Education Technology Coordinator at St. Thomas School and Human Centered Design graduate student at UW. Exploring how to effectively use VR in the classroom has been one of her joys. This year she is excited to be teaching her first group of students basic VR development in Unity, through a schoolwide interdisciplinary project called "Walk In My Shoes". The project helps students explore and share about their families culture and history. She is a coordinator of the Seattle Ed Tech Meetup and has presented on EdTech at ISTE, FETC, and NCCE.

Audio is a sometimes overlooked and often misunderstood element of the XR experience. This session will cover the theory, practice and limitations of 3D audio for XR. Better understanding the limits not only of current 3D audio technologies but also human hearing perception itself can lead to greatly improved XR experiences, and reduce frustrations all around.

Brian Schmidt is a consultant and 32 year veteran of the game and interactive audio industry. The recipient of the 2008 Game Audio Network Guild Lifetime Achievement Award, he has worked as both a composer/sound designer and audio technologist, working with clients worldwide including Microsoft, Sony, Sega, Electronic Arts, Magic Leap and more. He has been working with 3D audio in particular for three decades beginning as a student at Northwestern University where he received bachelors degrees in both Music and Computer Science and a Masters in Computer Music. In the 90's he designed the QSound "Q1"chip, the first real-time 3D audio arcade chip used by Capcom of Japan; as the program manager for the Xbox audio team at Microsoft, he helped design 3D audio technology into the original Xbox game console. In 2012, he developed a mobile 3D audio-based game, Ear Monsters, using spatial sound as the primary gameplay mechanic. Today he continues to consult for companies such as Magic Leap on 3D audio technology as well as actively compose for games such as Game of Thrones Pinball and Mutant Football League. Brian is also a speaker and educator and is and the Founder and Executive Director of GameSoundCon, the largest professional conference on audio for Games and Virtual Reality. Brian currently sits on the Game Developers Conference Advisory Board and has served as President of the Game Audio Network Guild since 2012.

Microsoft Maquette is a freely available VR tool that makes it easy and fast to build VR in VR. Come join our talk to learn about Maquette and how it has been used to accelerate MR content creation.

Jia Wang works as a senior software engineer at Microsoft's Mixed Reality team. Jia has a PhD in Computer Science with research focus on 3DUI and immersive VR authoring. At Microsoft Jia help developed several first party HoloLens apps and interaction techniques, as well as co-inventing and leading the development of Microsoft Maquette.

Immersive VR allows us to "walk in someone else's shoes" and experience perspective-taking like never before. This can be a powerful tool to create empathy and understanding. Learn how creators are using this tool to change behavior, sentiment, and intent. Explore how you can use best practices to create powerful experiences of your own.

Amy Lou Abernethy began her career as an educator but was soon drawn into the world of visual storytelling and video production. In addition to co-founding and nurturing the agency AMP Creative, she followed her heart back to the art and science of adult learning a few years ago, getting her masters in learning in digital environments. Standing at the crossroads of learning innovation and cinematic storytelling, Amy Lou collaborates with companies to develop transformative learning experiences and AMP Creative produces those experiences. She is passionate about the power of innovative mediums, like augmented reality and virtual reality, yet still believes that solutions start with the beating heart of a human story.