Explore the possibility of 'moving to' a specific user by clicking their name in the user list

[misslivirose]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
We have gotten feedback that users would like an easy way to jump to where another user is, similar to the way that you can click on a user's icon in a shared Google Doc to jump to where they are on the page. In Hubs, this might look like selecting someone's name from the user list, and having a way to quickly move to where they are.

Describe the solution you'd like
Basically, the ask is for an easier way to navigate to where someone else in the room is, without having to "physically" navigate over to them, surfaced in the 2D client UI. The solution should consider that some people may feel weird about the act of having someone in the room suddenly appear next to them.

Describe alternatives you've considered
We should consider this request as part of a larger question around navigation. In particular, it may be more of a preferred solution to have named places / waypoints (e.g. "Upstairs, pool) that a user could jump to instead (I believe that we have some initial designs for this type of solution) though that doesn't solve the immediate ask to get to where someone else is in the space. We could consider having the "go to / jump" functionality send a request that the receiver could deny.

Additional context
We need to keep privacy and social abuse situations in mind for a feature like this. There should be a way for people to turn off the ability for others to jump to them, and we probably would want that to be the default behavior, IMO. I think that this feature request also speaks to a bigger need for improvements to navigation in Hubs in general, and that this ask is potentially limiting the range of possibilities that might solve the same problem ("It's hard to get to the person I want to talk to").

Personally, I think I'd rather us focus on improving navigation more generally than implementing this specific feature as a standalone request, so I'd like to get some design eyes on the overall scenario to better understand the underlying challenges before we go ahead and try to design this specific ask.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

[johnshaughnessy]

We could consider having the "go to / jump" functionality send a request that the receiver could deny.

I like this idea.

[johnshaughnessy]

Some brainstorming on how we might implement this...

some people may feel weird about the act of having someone in the room suddenly appear next to them.

We can make the movement gradual instead of sudden. This reduces the creepiness from "anyone can enter my space suddenly at any time" to "anyone can find where I am in the room at any time, though I will see them coming".

The code might look something like :

Select a target location relative to the target user.
Navigate the mover along the navmesh as close to the target location as possible.
If the target location is significantly far from nav-mesh, fly the rest of the way.
(Move at a speed that is guaranteed to converge in a limited time frame.)
Orient the mover toward the target user.

If in VR or if "comfort mode" is enabled,
  fade to a blank screen or divorce the camera from the avatar until the avatar movement is complete.

Awkwardness might arise from people navigating on auto-pilot in the meantime (they might fly thru people or groups without intending to). We might mitigate the negative impact this by:

• Changing the visuals of the user (turn them transparent to indicate they are auto-moving, have each client turn them entirely invisible as they approach and move thru them).
• Change the movement algorithm to avoid other people (may be difficult).
• Shrink and fly the user in a noticeable orb at a higher level above the nav-mesh than other people.
• Instead of auto-moving users, give them directions.

[johnshaughnessy]

We need to keep privacy and social abuse situations in mind for a feature like this

Related, it concerns me to see how many Hubs Cloud instances are set up for semi-public events, where participants do not know/trust each other. Rooms as they exist today don't give much recourse to Alice if she is avoiding Bob (besides outright blocking Bob or asking a moderator to remove Bob from the event).

I feel like the first-person perspective we adopt in Hubs by default increases the feeling that "I am present in the body of my avatar" in a way that is not helpful in situations like this. It may be just me, but when puppet my avatar(s) from a third-person camera, I feel less discomfort from people approaching / looking at me.

e.g. Sims people seen from a third-person perspective

[djay]

I feel like the first-person perspective we adopt in Hubs by default increases the feeling that "I am present in the body of my avatar" in a way that is not helpful in situations like this. It may be just me, but when puppet my avatar(s) from a third-person camera, I feel less discomfort from people approaching / looking at me.

I think thats a whole seperate issue and possibly a whole different product. There is a hide button I believe so you can not see or hear someone which might partially help with this but really thats not related to being able to find someone in a space