Ricky Houck

There’s two types of client presentations I find interesting in virtual reality. 1) Physical Products Large, complex, dangerous, expensive products. Cars, tractors, rockets, buildings. To showcase these in person is expensive and frankly limited. Virtually we can not only show more of the product we can also configure them to any color or feature set live in real time. Making for highly engaging interactive demos. 2) Complex Enterprise Services Design thinking workshops, leadership development programs, change management. Immersive storytelling can help really complex ideas resonate more clearly with customers. Especially social VR platforms make it much easier to align groups of stakeholders more quickly.

There’s one very underrated and tiny thing that has a huge impact. We consider this one thing to be table stakes in 2D SaaS tools. It’s in every single product and we expect it to be there, but for some reason most VR tools don’t do this well. In product tool tips and usage guides. If I’m using a controllers buttons I should be able to see those buttons and they should be labeled or at least colored. Nobody remembers what the “b button” is in VR. Take advantage of the 3D space and have guides / tips that can pop up into the space and let users interact with them. Leverage 3D models and animations to tell the story. As you assess tools for your program, make sure to look for these self education features. They really help onboarding.

I've experimented with almost every social VR platform available. Here's some things to look out for and my very biased recommendations. Commitment to the headset. An alternative 2D experience is important... but if you're doing VR training with multiple users you really need a platform optimized for VR. webXR is great for accessibility but these platforms really struggle as you fill rooms, and generally don't have great security and compliance. There's 2 clear platforms leading in quality & performance: Engage & Arthur. Engage let's you do some pretty unique setups with 3D objects and animations. Arthur is more stable, easier to learn with modern UI, and has a deeper focus on supporting true enterprise activations for global teams.

There's two primary learning types in VR: 1. Individual Learning Scenarios - soft skills for role playing difficult conversations - hard skills training for dealing with machinery - product design workflows - step by step processes 2. Group Learning Workshops - Onboarding new hires - Change management - Client education - Collaborative learning Each require a different type of platform and rollout strategy. Often times you might run the two in parallel. Either way, ease of use should be a top priority. Most learning scenarios are still for first time VR users. Don't underestimate how difficult it can be to pickup basic skills like moving around and interacting with 3D objects. Find products with tool tips and quality support staff.

So so so underrated!! Not enough VR teams use virtual reality for their internal workflows. So many of us still spend time in video calls to communicate with each other. It can make a huge difference on your team culture to have some of your meetings in headset. Not all of them, it needs to serve the purpose of the meeting. When you have a group sharing ideas, or the need for breakout activities throughout a presentation, it's far superior to video. More than one person can talk at the same time because of spatial audio. The lack of physics let's us share ideas and refocus stakeholders attention in more compelling ways. Lack of distractions make everyone feel much more heard. Lack of insecurity of video fosters more participation.

When considering the right platforms and hardware setup for your VR installation you need to first consider your audience. Who is the user? Are they tech savvy younger crowd who might have used VR before or at least played some video games. They might be quicker to understand controllers with less direction. Or are they mostly first time users? Older less technical folks? Then you might want to consider outlining tips and tricks and putting more effort into simplifying the basics. Is it small intimate crowd or a large audience? I find it's typically nice to have a big screen to cast the experience to for others, or if it's virtual to include a web based alternative for more visibility. But some experiences do require full immersion.