Among the individual disciplines that drive AR & VR (a.k.a XR) innovation, UX and design are foundational. This was a central takeaway at last week’s UX in VR event, held by the VRARA SF and ARVR MunchnLearn.

But more importantly, through discussions of UX tactics — ray casting, locomotion and teleportation — a common theme started to emerge. Each speaker separately stressed that we need the one-two punch of experimentation and collaboration.

In other words, in these early days of experimentation for the best (and least nausea-inducing) user experiences, developers should collaborate and share best practices. We’re seeing this — even among competitors — drive lots of early stage innovation.

“Experiment, and don’t be afraid to break things,” said Digital Myths Studio’s Rafael Brown. “And when you find things that work, share it back with me.” By ‘me,’ he jokingly meant the collective developer community that can benefit from shared learnings.

The packed house at San Francisco State University’s downtown campus also heard lots of good design tactics from Oculus’ Brian Sharp and Unity’s Dylan Urquidi. And ARtillry gave the event’s opening presentation with insights on XR industry directions.

You can see each of these segments in the videos embedded below. Special thanks to all the speakers, San Francisco State University, and the event’s co-producers VRARA SF and ARVR MunchnLearn.