Morgan Tucker: Designing for the Metaverse

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Episode Summary

There is a tendency to think of technology as engineering and data-driven, but the art of storytelling and the power of intuition cannot be overlooked as central to building great products. Where engineering brings a product to life, storytelling envisions how the user will experience that product. And where data allows us to make decisions based on what we know, intuition allows us to make decisions based on what we sense given the patterns we observe. Morgan demonstrates that a refined intuition and the ability to tell a story can be invaluable tools in producing truly innovative ideas.

When making these innovative ideas a reality, it is essential that product visionaries be able to use evocative communication methods to transfer their vision to the minds of others to gather support. Morgan speaks to how his two decades of design and product experience pushed him to advocate for bold visions of virtual social communities that encouraged users to push the boundaries of self-expression and collaboration, without ever explicitly dictating this behavior. The most powerful social platforms will be those that allow the users to determine its direction by empowering them to create, much like Instagram once empowered anyone to be a photographer. They will also maintain a degree of imperfection that exudes authenticity, which younger generations that have grown up in an editorialized age of tech crave.

The highest potential space for these kinds of experiences lives at the intersection of gaming and social systems. Gaming has mastered high rendering, immersive experiences, but remains highly curated, while social systems offer the openness and innovation that comes from allowing content to be user generated. Marrying these two spaces will be the future of virtual experiences.

Morgan most recently pushed further into this intersection when building Roblox’s first virtual concert with Lil Nas X. The virtual concert showed people both internally and externally what the platform was truly capable of evolving to be beyond what people expect of it today, while maintaining the level of authenticity that attracts users to an imperfectly-human and user-generated platform like Roblox. 

Morgan speaks to the importance of striking a realistic balance between 2D and 3D experiences. While there tends to be an assumption that a more physically immersive experience is better, sometimes a 2D experience simply makes more sense (like when consuming written information). Creating platforms that incorporate the two will be best for users in the long term.

Morgan stands by the idea that the most successful metaverse is one that is made by the people and owned by the people. While professional companies can build the initial structures for the metaverse, it is essential that anyone be able to create in the metaverse and contribute to shaping the experience as a whole. We should be envisioning the future of the metaverse as one that is totally democratized and that is only limited by what the people can imagine it to be.

About the Guest

Morgan Tucker is the Head of Product, Social at Roblox, where he has spearheaded new Metaverse experiences such as the Lil Nas X concert, the Gucci Garden experience, and the In the Heights movie launch party. Previously, he was the VP of Product at imvu where he built social avatar experiences. 

Show Notes

[5:30] Storytelling and emotional experiences in tech

[7:50] How does a background in design inform the product experiences?

[8:45] Pushing for innovative products or ways of thinking

[12:40] Harnessing intuition in a data-driven environment

[17:20] Building credibility as a creative

[19:30] Marrying gaming and consumer social industries

[23:10] Transitioning social experiences into 3D

[28:00] Key insights for those building the metaverse

[29:00] Trends in Gen Z socializing with tech

[32:40] The ideal metaverse