On Show

Colin Sharkey

I previously studied at IADT on the BA in Visual Communication programme and worked for a number of years as a visual designer and frontend developer. At present, I am working in Hertz as a full-stack UX designer and developer, where I am involved in the full life cycle of a product (from research to delivery), which the MSc User Experience Design course helped me with. The focus of the research I completed in this course was a combination of a personal interest in Virtual Reality (VR) with a work-related project that involved COVID training for the HR department. I took this opportunity to research a practical application for this emerging technology.

Video walkthrough of using the VR training application on a mobile phone with a Google Cardboard headset.

This project utilises the British Design Councils Double Diamond framework. This is split into 4 stages – discover, define, develop and deliver. The methods used for primary research were in the form of a staff survey, HR interview & focus group. This informed the design of a user persona, empathy map and journey map. The research questions were created on the literature and practice review. A competitive analysis and best practice review were conducted, they influenced the design of sketches, storyboards and primary assets. A VR storyboard informed the creation of a low-fidelity prototype and this kicked off an iterative user-centred testing cycle which ended with the creation of a high fidelity VR prototype built with A-Frame. The high fidelity prototype was used for the experiment which was a between-subject mixed methods study.

This is a summary of the main findings from the user research which included a survey with Hertz staff, an interview with the HR manager and a staff focus group. The main takeaways from the user research was an identified target audience (staff that need to return onsite and have concerns over safety and on-site changes), the main concerns that the HR dept had from staff (which were prioritised by the staff in the focus group) and the main goal of the training was outlined. To show the experience returning to work to staff, highlighting it is not as daunting as they initially think.

The user research was distilled into a persona, Sarah, and an empathy map and journey map were created. The journey map highlights the ‘to-be’ experience of Sarah returning to work after training with the VR app. This indicates setting Sarah’s expectations for returning onsite.

The prioritized list of changes from the user research was roughly sketched into scenes and narrative. These sketches helped define what primary assets were required and a photo shoot was organized on the Hertz premises. The image on the bottom is of a VR storyboard which was used to plan where the UI elements and interaction would be in relation to the user in 3d space.

The low-fidelity PT was created based on the VR storyboard, sketched using Procreate and imported to Adobe XD to build a remote prototype. The mid-fidelity prototype was created with Adobe XD using a plugin called DraftXR that allows for very basic VR prototypes. There were some issues with glitches and latency for the VR Prototype so for ethical reasons it was decided to use the 360web view instead.

The High-fidelity prototype was created with A-Frame, a web framework, and incorporated the changes from the previous prototype. The prototype can be accessed by scanning the QR code.

This was a between-subject, mix-methods study with 2 groups. The video presentation and VR. 3 variables, Effectiveness – satisfaction and cognitive load were measured. There were 30 participants in total, evenly distributed between the 2 groups. The process involved recruiting participants, which were filtered using the Motion sickness susceptibility questionnaire.

The qualitative results were more positive than the quantitative. There were 3 key findings, here we can see higher engagement and distraction from 360-images as documented in the literature. Also, a design issue was discovered relating to button height which prompted some users to tilt their headset.

Project Description

This project involved researching, designing, developing and testing a Virtual Reality (VR) training application. The application was intended for Hertz staff, based in the Dublin office, to help with remote training. The training content was centred around Covid and the changes in the Hertz office to work on-site safely. The project applied the British Design Councils Double-diamond framework and followed a user-centred design approach. The application was iteratively designed and the final prototype was developed using A-Frame, a web framework for developing mixed reality applications.

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Virtual Reality for Training: A comparative study of content delivery methods for workplace COVID training

The current global pandemic has forced many Irish workers to operate from home, placing pressure on human resources (HR) departments to care for their employees’ safety and well-being remotely. This research study explores how Virtual Reality (VR) can be used remotely to train staff on post-COVID changes to working on-site in a use case for the Hertz Dublin office. The study aimed to determine whether VR could be a more effective remote training method than 2D video presentations with Hertz staff. A VR training artefact was designed through a user-centred iterative approach and developed using A-Frame. A comparative study of both training methods, VR and video presentation evaluated the effectiveness, satisfaction, and cognitive load using the same training material. The results indicate that remote VR training did not significantly impact the effectiveness, satisfaction, or cognitive load. This research will benefit those considering VR as a practical training tool for use in the HR sector.

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User Experience Design

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