Transitions in VR

Description

VR experiences are typically designed as a stand alone experience, contained in a VR headset. Immersant are invited to put on the headset and instantaneously be transported into a virtual world, where in some cases they are expected to have a profound emotional experience. After experiencing VR they often take the headset off and are directed out of the door to move on with their day-to-day life, without much consideration for providing space for processing the experience. In this project, we explore how we can better design transitions in and out of VR that can feel less abrupt, and help prepare immersants for a potential of profound experience, as well as provide space after that can help them accommodate their experience. We show that purposefully designed transitions support a more impactful experience than going into VR in a sterile lab context.

My role

While Alexandra has lead the project, I have contributed through all the stages of design of transitions, study design and data analysis. experience. I also took a lead on designing, running and analyzing the study.

Collaborators

Publications

Kitson, A., Stepanova, E. R., Aguilar, I., Wainwright, N. & Riecke, B. E. Designing Mind(set) and Setting for Profound Emotional Experiences in Virtual Reality in In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems (ACM DIS’20) Conference (Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2020).

Kitson, A., Stepanova, E. R., Aguilar, I., Wainwright, N. & Riecke, B. E. Transcending the Lab: Using Storytelling and Theatre Practices to Support Self-Transcendent Experiences in Virtual Reality in 24th Annual CyberPsychology, CyberTherapy Social Networking Conference (CyPsy24) (conference talk) (Norfolk, VA, USA, June 2019).

Tags

Funding

“How can we ease users’ tran­si­tion from the real sur­round­ings into the vir­tual world?”

Stepanova E.R