Optimizing VR Event Onboarding
A Service Design Case Study
2024 | Service Design, User Research, Workshop facilitation
Overview
The challenge
In an ever-evolving landscape of immersive entertainment, optimizing the onboarding experience for VR events at theaters and cinemas poses a distinct challenge. The inherently immersive nature of VR demands a significant investment of time from participants to grasp its intricacies, often without the luxury of personalized guidance. Startr, a company specializing in organizing and delivering XR services, recognized the need for assistance in addressing these challenges.
My role
I was part of a project team of 4 designers where my duties were:
Co-defined the research plan and conducted qualitative research with users and stakeholders.
Synthesized data gathered with the team to uncover opportunities.
Led ideation workshops and participated in co-creating the final solution.
The project combined field and user research to understand the virtual reality (VR) experiences at location based events (LBE). Our objective was to explore the entire delivery process of these experiences and pinpoint opportunities for enhancing efficiency and seamlessness.
The image on the right shows a glimpse of our process, that we compiled in a Figma Jam board.
The approach
We interviewed individuals with various levels of VR experience, ranging from owning their own headsets to being completely new to VR. Additionally, we engaged in discussions with the client (our main stakeholder) to analyze and understand their interactions with the venues, hosts and participants of events throughout the process.
Simultaneously, as Startr experiences were not occurring at the exact location and time of our project, some of the team members attended other VR shows to gain firsthand experience, empathize with users, and develop a deeper understanding of the onboarding process at such events.
We created four user personas along with their corresponding experience maps based on our research, each representing individuals with diverse characteristics, experiences, and pain points.
From our analysis, several key issues emerged:
Participants with prior VR experience have distinct needs compared to those new to VR.
“I want to experience new challenges without the feeling overwhelm by commands and controls”Certain participants may have specific needs or conditions, such as allergies or vision/hearing impairment, which are not currently addressed within the VR experience.
“I am allergic to silicon - and I had a reaction to the silicon”Hosts lack insight into the varying levels of support required by different participants, leading to potential mismatches in assistance during the onboarding process.
Results
After running an ideation workshop our team start exploring different solutions, which were refine as we gather some user&stakeholder feedback. This initiative aimed to ensure that the onboarding process is attuned to the specific requirements of each participant, fostering inclusivity and enhancing overall satisfaction and therefore we delivered:
A service blueprint map that capture several opportunities to improve the overall experience for participants and help hosts to deliver a better quality experience
From those opportunities we developed a comprehensive survey to capture participants' diverse needs and any special conditions and the different badges to be assigned to to each participant that will enable hosts to better identify and deliver a more tailored onboarding experience.
Learnings
This project presented several challenges and provided valuable professional insights:
While unable to conduct research collectively, we adapted by individually interviewing co-pilot users and attending LBE events in our respective cities. This experience underscored the importance of exploring alternative research methods when faced with limitations.
Coordination proved challenging due to the project's nature, prompting me to take on a leadership role in organizing and delegating tasks. This experience allowed me to hone my coordination skills.
Time constraints prevented us from conducting real-event testing. Instead, we advised the client to conduct pilot tests and gathered feedback from participants&hosts along the way to refine our solutions before implementation