The incredible impact of Virtual Reality
VR has many purposes. The perfect way to fully immerse people in the magic of the digital world is Virtual Reality (VR). It is a super effective resource for educational or industrial purposes, or to simply amaze and create a brand experience. The possibilities are endless.
The days of nauseating roller-coaster movies are gone. Where it was in its infancy at the time, VR has evolved into a wonderful technology capable of transporting the user into another world. When you put the headset on your head, you are disconnected from the here and now and see yourself in a truly immersive experience. Often the audio-visual experience of VR is accompanied by motion controllers. This allows the user to actually perform actions in the digital experience where they are.
The facts
Let’s dive into some (scientific) research for a moment, to show just how effective Virtual Reality is.
- The research from the “PwC 2022 US Metaverse Survey.‘ shows that the effectiveness of VR use far exceeds other methods of information transfer. Research on the effect of training showed that VR learners:
– Were trained 4x faster than their colleagues in a classroom setting.
– Were 275% more confident to apply learned skills.
– Were 3,75x more emotionally connected to the content than in a classroom setting.
– Were 4x more focused than their peers who took online training. - Another study indicates that education through VR produced higher achievement levels than the face-to-face teaching approach, answers were more accurate and more information was stored (Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra et al., 2022). This study assesses the effects of earthquake training in VR versus classroom settings.
- An experiment by Q. Lhemedu-Steinke et al. (2018) shows that Virtual Reality provides a significant increase in concentration, engagement and enjoyment of an experience, relative to conventional displays. During this study, participants were asked to try an automatic racing simulator.
Virtual Reality can be used for training, education, simulations, remote meetings, as a promotional tool and for entertainment or games. The power of Virtual Reality is in creating a special experience within the context of a product, service or story. That way you make real impact.
Education
The examples from research say it all. Virtual Reality is capable of captivating schoolchildren and students more than conventional education. Concentration, engagement and attention go up. Students are less distracted and the knowledge sticks better. Sounds like the ideal way to teach.
Especially for visual information, Virtual Reality can be of tremendous value. Imagine an anatomy lesson, for example, in Virtual Reality, this allows for the detailed study of structures in the human body, without the use of corporeal remains.
Training
Showing workers around, disassembling and reassembling machines, demonstrating medical procedures or going through a training program with video footage and interactive questions. As we saw in the studies above, information has been shown to be better absorbed and also better retained by users through Virtual Reality.
Also from a practical point of view, Virtual Reality can be a godsend when, for example, you need to train international workers or people to work with hazardous equipment. They don’t have to fly to you, dangerous devices don’t have to be used until people know how to handle them and that safety video that no one watches? Suddenly super interesting when you are in it yourself!
Because of its immersive and stimulating nature, training or explanation in Virtual Reality has greater compliance and employees will finish the training better prepared. Besides, it’s just a lot of fun.
Product demonstrations
Whereas Augmented Reality (AR) is suitable for demonstrating a product, Virtual Reality provides the opportunity to really experience and use a product. Especially when larger products are involved, VR gives a better sense of scale and provides the opportunity to be able to naturally walk around the product and see it properly. Not everything is suitable for viewing in AR through your phone screen at full size.
At trade shows, for example, VR can be an interesting addition because Virtual Reality can provoke curiosity and thus attracts visitors, it is an intriguing way to display your products or services, it eliminates practical problems for demonstrating large products and allows a wide variety of products or dangerous products to be safely displayed. In addition, an interactive component can be created that allows visitors to actually experience your product or service.
Remote Collaboration
Remote collaboration has become a popular phenomenon in companies and businesses. Virtual Reality can be a key factor in its success. Meeting from home in VR saves time and money. It is so much nicer to be able to interact with colleagues from all over the world. In the comfort of your home, in a truly pleasant manner. Moreover, VR is much more fun, sociable, impressive and attention-grabbing than a teams meeting.
It really makes people feel like they are there and are part of the room and the team, making it a super effective way to collaborate remotely. Not only is VR effective for meetings, but it also makes for great fun and contributes to good team building. This is especially important if you interact often or only from a distance. Collaboration in VR provides a new dimension in remote collaboration and offers a unique experience that contributes to a more efficient collaboration, higher loyalty and greater attachment to the company.
Experiences – Fun
What still grabs people the most: fun and interesting experiences. When you manage to tickle someone’s childlike enthusiasm, you know you’re in the right place.
Virtual Reality offers endless possibilities for providing a very cool experience that makes people link these memories to your business. Sometimes you just want to offer something super fun, for the sake of fun. Consider an interactive game, fun immersive visual er experience, etc. Truly anything is possible in VR!
Resources
- PwC’s inaugural 2022 US Business and Consumer Metaverse Survey, PwC Research April-May 2022.
- Rajabi, Mohammad Sadra, Hosein Taghaddos and Mehdi Zahrai. “Improving Emergency Training for Earthquakes Through Immersive Virtual Environments and Anxiety Tests: A Case Study.” ArXiv abs/2205.04993 (2022): n. page.
- Q. Lhemedu-Steinke, G. Meixner and M. Weber, “Comparing VR Display with Conventional Displays for User Evaluation Experiences,” 2018 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), Tuebingen/Reutlingen, Germany, 2018, pp. 583-584, doi: 10.1109/VR.2018.8446076.