Your cart is currently empty!
Metafocus: Best Practices for Designing VR Corporate Training Experiences and Games
We know a little about what works in virtual reality. Weknow a lot about what doesn’t. Relatively few serious games and 360-degreetraining videos have been created for VR thus far. However, corporate trainersexcited about incorporating VR into their training programs can learn much fromVR game designers and developers, 360-degree documentarians, and otherentertainment VR content creators. This column explores best practices that youcan apply to VR corporate training experiences.
Avoid nausea
Although it’s been said many times, the first lesson is alsothe most important for beginning VR developers: Do not induce nausea in theviewer (i.e., player, user, student). VR can trigger motion sickness when theviewer’s body and inner ear do not experience the same apparent motion that theeyes see on the screen.
Several strategies reduce or eliminate this problem: Don’tmove the viewer’s point of view too quickly; keep segments short (which alsohelps maintain high viewer engagement); create a “cockpit” (such as a car’sdashboard and windshield frame) to ground the viewer; and use a high frame rate(the minuscule but continual lag from using fewer frames per second isnevertheless interpreted by the brain as a sensory discrepancy). That said, youcan skimp on peripheral andbackground details to keep your computer’s GPU and CPU processing requirementsto a minimum. VR developers use other, more technical methods as well, but the strategiesabove will prevent nausea for most viewers.
Create for 3-D, not 2-D
When cinema was first invented, early producers anddirectors still thought in terms of theater. Thus, early movies felt a lot liketheatrical productions recorded and reproduced on a flat screen. Similarly, theearliest television shows were basically radio programs broadcast on atelevision screen. Eventually, forward-thinking artists and visionaries creatednew ways of using the media’s capabilities to tell better stories.
VR is currently experiencing a similar lack of vision. Ontelevision, cinema, and computer screens, we passively watch a 2-D image andhave no control over what we see and experience. The full control lies with thecontent creators (director, camera operator, video editor, etc.) who design astory that unfolds linearly and chronologically (i.e., one frame after anotherwith each successive viewing by each viewer progressing exactly the same) inone screen location directly in front of our eyes. A viewer’s only agency is inwhether to watch or not. In VR, the viewer can interact with the environment,look this way instead of that, and explore at her own pace. Traditional 2-D storytelling methods do not workwell in VR.
The solution: Put yourself in the viewer’s shoes. Try toexperience the virtual world you’re creating in ways the viewer might. Slowdown the pace and allow the viewer time to explore. Focus on play, surprise,and delight. Use visual and audio cues to direct focus to important details sothe viewer doesn’t miss them due to looking in the other direction.
Further, identify what could be better taught or trained ina 3-D virtual space and what could be better taught through a book, video,podcast, etc. Don’t simply have viewers read lots of text or click throughPowerPoint decks. At least for now, 2-D screens, books, and printed documentsare far superior media for simple reading, so don’t make someone put on a VRheadset just to read.
Create empathy and tell stories
VR’s big promise is its ability to generate empathy in theviewer. Gabo Arora’s VR documentary projects,collaborations between the UN and Here Be Dragons along with its sister company,Within,demonstrate some of the best examples to date of using VR to create empathy.These eight- to 10-minute documentaries produce a four times higher rate ofdonation for the associated causes, and also a four times larger averagedonation, per Arora’s panel discussion at SXSW Eco 2015. Anecdotally, I watchedtwo of these documentaries in 2015, and the stories and images I experiencedstill move me, haunt me even, to this day. In contrast, I can’t recall a singleYouTube video I watched last week, much less in 2015. This implies that theincrease in empathy is substantial and can last for years.
This works because our minds don’t perceive VR experiencesas simply data that can easily be categorized and forgotten, like the quarterlyreport we read last week, but rather as actual memories from actual events weactually experienced firsthand. To our brains, the difference between a memoryof a VR experience and a real-life experience is often negligible (see theresearch papers linked in the “Additional resources” section at the end of thisarticle). Further, the experience may be virtual, but the emotions are veryreal.
In short, in virtual reality, as with any reality, storiesstick and memories last. Use this to your advantage in your VR training programby creating stories and experiences where viewers literally (virtually) walk inthe shoes of real people or characters, interacting with other people and theenvironment around them. What problems do they encounter? What rewards do theyreceive? How do they respond? What do people say to them? How does the storyend? How do they feel?
While quantifiable research is still being done on how andwhy this works, some conclusions are nearly certain. If your VR experiencefocuses on creating empathy, the viewer is quite likely to learn faster, withmore enthusiasm, and will more deeply retain the lessons over the long term.
Note: Beware the “uncanny valley” problem. That is, don’tmake animated characters look too realistic, because their movements and facialexpressions will never look fully natural. If you do, viewers will becomecreeped out, and you’ll ruin the chance to create empathetic connection andsuspension of disbelief. Paradoxically, it’s better to make charactersobviously animated than “almost real but not quite right.”
Pick the right platform
VR creators have several devices to choose from, includingthe Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream,and Google Cardboard. Each has its own pros and cons.
Create for Daydream or Cardboard if you want lots ofviewers, especially viewers at home, because the equipment costs are lowest.Create for Rift, Vive, or PlayStation if you want more interactivity tomaximize the viewers’ agency and experience. These more expensive devicesemploy hand controllers, earphones, external cameras to monitor your position,and powerful computers that can process more complex visuals and actions.
Narrow the focus
Don’t start by trying to be all things and do all things, atleast not at first. Instead, pick just one important lesson or experience thatlends itself well to VR as a medium, then measure the results and continuallyimprove the experience over time. Don’t waste your resources creating lots ofcontent until you’ve gotten user feedback and learned what works and what doesn’t.
Educational experiences in which VR excels
Some types of educational experiences lend themselves to VR(as well as its close cousins, augmented reality, mixed reality, and 360-degreevideo) better than others, including:
- Physical actions that one needs to practice
- Exploring, designing, and learning about complexobjects such as a space station, jet engine, submarine, building, or human body
- Exploring places that can’t easily be exploredin one’s real life, such as Mars, oceans, other countries, remote parks, Chernobyl,mountains,volcanoes,the sky, or inside a beehive; even the past or the future
- What it’s like to be the opposite sex, physically disabled, or bullied
- What it’s like to fly a plane, cross the street, or learn to scuba dive
These examples work because virtual submersion substitutesreasonably well for real experiences that are expensive, time-consuming,physically impossible, or otherwise unattainable.
Summary
Although VR is a relatively new medium that we’re stilllearning how to use, following the above best practices of the industry willhelp your VR experience succeed. Given that the possibilities for creativity inVR are endless; that VR increases empathy and memory retention; that access tothe technology is growing rapidly; and that the stakes are low for viewers ascompared with learning in the real world, VR is the perfect medium toexperiment and invent new storytelling and educational techniques.
What VR methods, techniques, and strategies have worked foryou as a corporate trainer, and which haven’t? Please let us know in thecomments.
Additional resources
Bailenson, Jeremy, Kayur Patel, Alexia Nielsen, RuzenaBajscy, Sang-Hack Jung, and Gregorij Kurillo. “The Effect of Interactivity onLearning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality.” Media Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 3. September 2008.
https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2008/bailenson-mp-interactivity.pdf
Segovia, Kathryn Y., and Jeremy N. Bailenson. “VirtuallyTrue: Children’s Acquisition of False Memories in Virtual Reality.” Media Psychology, Vol. 12, No. 4.December 2009.
https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2009/segovia-virtually-true.pdf
https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2012/bailey-ispr-presence-memory.pdf
