The metaverse refers to the merger of technologies for providing a digital twin of the real world and the underlying connectivity and interactions for the many kinds of agents within. As this set of technology paradigms - involving artificial intelligence, mixed reality, the internet-of-things and others - gains in scale, maturity, and utility there are rapidly emerging design challenges and new research opportunities. In particular is the metaverse disconnect problem, the gap in task switching that inevitably occurs when a user engages with multiple virtual and physical environments simultaneously. Addressing this gap remains an open issue that affects the user experience and must be overcome to increase overall utility of the metaverse. This article presents design frameworks that consider how to address the metaverse as a hyper-connected meta-environment that connects and expands multiple user environments, modalities, contexts, and the many objects and relationships within them. This article contributes to i) a framing of the metaverse as a social XR-IoT (XRI) concept, ii) design Considerations for XRI metaverse experiences, iii) a design architecture for social multi-user XRI metaverse environments, and iv) descriptive exploration of social interaction scenarios within XRI multi-user metaverses. These contribute a new design framework for metaverse researchers and creators to consider the coming wave of interconnected and immersive smart environments.

翻译：元宇宙是指融合多种技术，为现实世界构建数字孪生体，并支撑其中多种智能体之间的底层连接与交互。随着这一涵盖人工智能、混合现实、物联网等技术的范式体系在规模、成熟度与实用性上的不断提升，设计挑战与新的研究机遇也迅速涌现。其中尤为突出的是元宇宙断连问题，即用户在同时与多个虚拟及物理环境交互时不可避免出现的任务切换间隙。弥补这一间隙仍是影响用户体验的未解难题，必须加以克服以提升元宇宙的整体效用。本文提出了若干设计框架，探讨如何将元宇宙视为一个超连接元环境，该环境连接并扩展了多用户环境、模态、情境及其内部的众多对象与关系。本文的贡献包括：i) 将元宇宙定位为社交XR-IoT（XRI）概念，ii) 提出XRI元宇宙体验的设计考量，iii) 构建面向社交多用户XRI元宇宙环境的设计架构，以及iv) 对XRI多用户元宇宙中社交交互场景的描述性探究。这些成果为元宇宙研究人员与创作者提供了一种新的设计框架，以应对即将到来的互联沉浸式智能环境浪潮。