I’ve been running VR sessions for over 8 years now. I’ve been doing a bunch recently for a large consultancy, as part of it, we’ve been training up staff to run these sessions in the future. It made me reflect on some of the less obvious things we tell people and I wanted to share them here as we help build a betterverse.

Here are four tips for onboarding VR users.

1) Make users feel safe and accepted

When we supervise people going into a virtual reality experience, they are surrendering their sense of sight and hearing at the very minimum.

These people are our responsibility, and it is essential that we make people feel safe.

Simple ways to do this include hosting your VR experience in a private area. This does not necessarily mean every user needs a private booth, but it should be separated from people who aren’t sharing the immersive experience.

Additionally, during your onboarding, make it very clear that you’re there to look after them. You will keep them safe; you will watch their belongings and if they ever feel uncomfortable or stuck, they simply need to raise their hand and you’ll be there.

2) Think about the user journey and design the briefing based on this

When you’re explaining how an app or experience works, there can be quite a few steps that the user needs to follow. Think about how the experience runs and how to make your explanation as straightforward as possible.

For example, if the user needs to select a specific option on the second screen, tell them this after you have explained how they navigate through the first screen. I know this might seem obvious but sometimes you can get caught up in the complexities that you forget some of the simplest things.

3) Survey the room and adjust your briefing accordingly

Be aware of different people’s access needs or requirements. Make sure to know the process for users with access requirements (hearing aids, wheelchair access, etc).

Additionally, if you see members of the audience with religious or ceremonial headwear, be aware that this will require specific guidance and care to put on a VR headset.

You don’t need to address people specifically in your briefing, and I would advise against it because you don’t want to single people out. This would break the first rule of making people feel safe. I would just try to integrate the additional points where needed into the briefing and then make sure they are looked after when putting headsets on.

Example points here would be;

• “If you wear glasses, put the headset on “eyes first” to make sure they seated well and don’t cause pressure marks”
• “If you have any access requirements and we have not already been informed, please let me know once we have begun by raising your hand”
• “The Velcro strap on the top of the headset can be adjust to provide additional support or completely undone if you require additional space”

4) Keep things clear and concise with a recap at the end.

There’s a lot of information to convey and it’s totally understandable for people to forget something during the onboarding process. A straightforward way to minimise this is with a final summary that includes bullet points of the core information that users need to know.

To recap

• Make users feel safe and accepted
• Think about the user journey and design the briefing based on this
• Survey the room and adjust your briefing accordingly
• Keep things clear and concise with a recap at the end.

A few tips for onboarding VR users was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Aka Facebook privacy nightmare shades.

Most of my day, I have an Oculus Quest 2 on my head, so obviously I have surrendered my soul to Facebook already. Most reviews seem to cover privacy concerns, so I’m going to ignore that. Go read those if you’re interested in that — and you should be.

I have several pairs of Ray-Bans, but no Wayfarers, so went for those, in blue, which make the cameras slightly more noticeable. This wasn’t intentional, I thought I bought black ones. Oh well. They fit well, slightly heavier than normal Ray-bans but I didn’t notice it after a few minutes.

Speakers are better than I thought they’d be, great for phone calls, videos, and podcasts, but not really music. Also anyone around you can hear it pretty clearly.

The mics work really well for phone calls and speech-to-text, as well as audio for video. Vaguely similar to AirPods Pro with Transparency on, except not as good but more convenient.

Touchpad controls for volume on the right arm seem a bit hit and miss.

The shutter button is in exactly the place I hold shades while putting them on and taking them off so I accidentally hit record every time.

Facebook assistant works well — I was going to disable it, but it’s so convenient to use. Dammit.

When you want to get photos and videos off the device, the app needs to connect to your shades via a Wi-fi network. Doesn’t automatically transfer media to your phone. It is pretty seamless as-is though. Once the media is transferred, it stays in the View app where you can edit it and share to other apps as required. It doesn’t automatically upload to Facebook.

The shades are a super easy way to capture media (and consume audio) without context switching to another device. I really really like it. The sacrifice in quality is worth it for the convenience.

In time, over future iterations, smart glasses like these will get packed with more and more tech, and as I didn’t get Google Glass, Snap Spectacles, or Bose Frames, I thought I’d jump on board here to see what these devices are like, and I’m pretty impressed so far.

Improvements

The single LED for recording isn’t enough IMO. A larger area is needed to make it more obvious. A light bar along the top of the shades maybe? Holding up a slab of glass and metal to take photos is quite an obvious postural thing to do, and noticeable by people around you. There needs to be some kind of equivalent here.

The speakers could be bone conductive instead, so not everyone can hear what you’re listening to.

Reposition the shutter button so it’s not exactly where you hold shades when putting them on.

Touchpad controls need to work reliably.

Sample montage from the View App

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTxZ_5QqgXn/

Update — a few days later

When I stop wearing them, I find myself missing them. Mainly for the convenience of the mic and speakers when using my phone.

Update 2

I was recorded by my own Ray-Ban Stories, and this was my reaction

https://twitter.com/yezzer/status/1438917690115117059

Iestyn is CTO at Future Visual, an award-winning VR & AR studio based in Brighton, UK that works with enterprise clients across the globe.

Future Visual develops ground-breaking immersive experiences that enable users to access situations and scenarios that are either physically impossible or prohibitively expensive to recreate in the real world.

Ray-Ban Stories — notes was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the last 6 years, we’ve introduced VR to well over 50,000 people, travelled the world and worked on some amazing projects. These are two of my favourite memories.

Touring Unrest VR: A week at Lewes Cinema

Over the years we have had opportunities to tour and demo a variety of content across the UK and globally. Touring Unrest VR was one of our biggest tours that we achieved. I think at the time we talked a lot online about the project but it still stays with me.

What stood out to me the most was the approach to the tour — at the time I had not yet seen a film and a VR piece be shown side by side. I loved that everyone that went to go see it at a cinema had the opportunity to also experience the VR experience too. Two very different experiences. If you are not aware Unrest VR was a companion piece to the award-winning documentary, Unrest. It explored the devastating impacts of M.E and the painful solitary confinement of a bedroom.

Unrest VR left an impact on a lot of people and being the person to put those people into the experience, be there during and of course be the first thing they see when they take the headset of is a big responsibility. I have always believed in providing safe spaces for content like this — one of the places that we toured Unrest VR, was in a little cinema in Lewes. We had a whole separate room for the demos and this allowed space to experience, decompress and talk.

What I gained from this project was my continuous learning of how to engage with people in these environments. Allowing space and time to talk.

This experience also allowed to me have confidence in myself, later in 2019 when I created my first 360 film and knowing that I knew exactly how I should demo it and talk to people.

Hampshire Libraries: Giving back

Before I worked in the immersive space I used to work in a community theatre which had a library attached to it. Like a community centre almost (which is hated being associated with) but I loved the feeling of community it had. The regulars who would pop in for their cup of teas and sandwiches after having a class in the library. The same lady that always asked the theatre if we had bus passes. I felt like when I moved on to the immersive space that one day I would like to give back to that community.

When we had the opportunity to work with Hampshire Libraries I was secretly buzzing. In 2016 we teamed up with Hampshire libraries to provide a free virtual reality taster session throughout the country. Back then we were using the Samsung Gear VR, which at the time felt like a huge step up from lugging our huge VR PC around with us.

With each library that we went too, we were able to give anyone who was interested the opportunity to sit and try out the headsets. What I loved the most about this project was being able to share my passion closely with a community that I felt we had not been able to cater to yet.

Even better was be able to step back into my own community space and share these free session with them. In the following year, the library attached the theatre I worked in after those taster sessions set up a lab, with VR kit, 3D printers, robots and classes that the community could be involved with.

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 1000 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

Reflections from six years of Virtual Umbrella Pt 1: Sammy was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jeremy leads PwC’s XR team, helping clients understand, quantify, and implement the benefits of virtual reality and augmented reality technology.

As part of his mission to educate, connect and inspire, he has supported the XR initiatives of the World Economic Forum and currently sits on the advisory board of ImmerseUK, a UK government supported cross-sector network for businesses, research and educational organisations that are engaged with immersive technologies.

What was your first encounter with immersive technology?

When I was growing up in Dubai in the mid-90s, I recall visiting a fairly low-key shopping centre and convincing my parents to let me have a go on a VR machine similar in form to a Virtuality CS1000 system with a single wired joystick. It was a first-person shooter game with Wolfenstein 3D like visuals. I didn’t survive for long but it was well worth the equivalent of the few quid I (ie, my parents) paid.

Note to readers: If anyone has any inkling of what the above machine or experience might have been, I’d love to take a trip down memory lane!

Can you remember the moment you decided to work in & around XR?

It was less of a moment and more of a gradual realisation. I’d been working in innovation for a while but it was proving difficult to keep tabs on all the exciting technologies out there. I wanted to feel more valuable so decided to specialise in one area. I picked XR because it was so unique compared to everything else — a rare example of an experiential, visceral technology that has applications in both the business and consumer world.

Everyone has a different background, different previous roles, different upbringing, etc. Can you think of how your previous experiences have impacted the way you approach immersive projects today?

I spent most of my life in the Middle East, only coming to the UK to study mathematics at university. After completing that, I stuck around and had a weird and wonderful career trajectory involving stocking shelves at a department store, summarising lecture notes for disabled students, and teaching mathematics online. Afterwards, I joined PwC working in audit, business recovery and then corporate innovation before founding the XR team.

I doubt anyone would consider this a relevant or viable route into the XR industry but it’s important to realise that your past experiences have lessons that you can take with you into XR. For example, I strongly credit qualifying as a Chartered Accountant for my current role in XR — it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do and definitely skimmed a few years off my life expectancy! But in a strange turn of events, achieving that qualification despite how difficult I found it gave me the confidence I needed to believe in and push for a dedicated XR team at PwC.

You’ve worked on a whole bunch of immersive projects now, what was your favourite one? and why? You’re allowed to be vague if it breaks an NDA.

I’m super excited about a project we just finished which helps people build empathy and understanding on inclusivity-related issues such as microaggressions in the workplace. Not only is the subject matter incredibly important but we pushed the boundaries of the technology too, incorporating multiple volumetric video captures on a standalone headset.

What is the most challenging project or aspect of a project you’ve worked on? And how did you and the team overcome it?

For one of the projects I chose to feature in my book Reality Check, we had to build a ‘choose your own adventure’ 360 video experience, filmed in the UK, and delivered in Toronto to 300 people simultaneously. To complicate things even further, it required custom synchronisation and data collection software that was run from a tablet and we had to set up our own local network infrastructure at the venue to support it. All of this had to be built and delivered in 3 months with zero flexibility on the timeline. There was a lot of scrambling about and sweaty brows over that period but ultimately it was a resounding success thanks to the dedication and hard work of the people on that project from our script writer (Alex Rühl) to our project manager (Louise Liu) to the many PwC Canada staff that joined us in manually loading each of the 300 headsets prior to the event!

So you’ve written a book, tell me why you wrote it and what you’re hoping to achieve!

I wrote Reality Check to deliver a message to business leaders everywhere: XR is not just for gaming and it’s not a future technology. It’s here and, right now, it’s being used by organisations all over the world to reduce costs, build new revenue streams, create efficiencies and so much more.

My hope is that Reality Check will contribute at least a little bit to the great work everyone in XR is doing at promoting the diverse use of the technology. You can find more details about it here.

What challenges did you face with writing the book? (timeframe, how fast information becomes out of date, finding relevant case studies, etc)

The timeframe to write Reality Check was tight (6 months) and the pandemic unsettled things as my editor was put on furlough which knocked my confidence that the whole project would ever get off the ground. In a sudden shock to the system, she returned to work a few months later! With an imminent deadline now on the horizon, I returned to my routine of writing before work, after work, all through the weekends, and even took some annual leave to get it over the line.

One of the most difficult challenges was trying not to put so much pressure on myself to deliver a ‘perfect’ book — during my research, I always found more and more exciting concepts, data and studies that I wanted to include for completeness. I had to accept that if I followed through on all of these nagging desires, I’d never finish the book, so I drew a line in the sand and articulated the key points I wanted in the timeframe I had.

From the start of this project, information becoming out of date was a concern but to tackle it I focused less on cutting-edge news and future outlooks and more on the fundamentals: what makes XR so powerful, what are the myths surrounding it, how has this tech been applied in business, and so on — which will help maintain the book’s relevancy and value for longer.

What do you wish you could change about the industry?

Given the relatively emergent nature of the XR industry, we have a real opportunity to encourage more women to get involved. Half of our XR team in PwC UK are women, and all over the world, you can find examples of pioneering XR leaders, many of whom can be found on Joanna Popper’s very useful WomenInVRARImmersive Twitter list. While the numbers behind women in technology as a whole don’t bode well for the XR industry, it’s encouraging to see so many female leaders disrupt the status quo and hopefully encourage an even greater influx of female talent into XR.

What’s the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given in business?

While there’s nothing cool about joining a large company, joining the right one that aligns to your values can give you the opportunity and head space to lead a fulfilling career.

What’s the worst bit of advice?

Writing a book is a profitable venture.

Any parting words of advice or something motivational for our readers?

Remember that while knowledge and experience can be gained, your attitude and dedication is what really counts. The XR industry is not as established as other industries and that can work in your favour by reducing the red tape and elitism that often comes from trying to build a career in an established market.

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 1000 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

XR Interview: Jeremy Dalton, Head of XR at PwC & Author of Reality Check. was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Created by XR & Events Consultant, Verity Nalley.

PDF available for download here: https://bit.ly/370iqdo

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 1000 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

Eliminating Unfortunate Events was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This week, Cooperative Innovations announced a new digital platform ‘Curatours’ to open the virtual doors of popular cultural institutions, museums and galleries. It’s being sold as a platform for social, cultural, virtual tours. For anyone, Anywhere. — This sounds intriguing.

The Curatours app will offer an immersive experience where visitors can skip queues and get closer to artefacts, precious objects and put questions to the experts on live tours.

You will be able to access the ‘Curatours’ app via a smartphone, a tablet, PC, web browsers or a VR headset with the ability to choose tailored tours, join friends, family, classmates and others online, and experience cultural and heritage sites that before now were unable to visit.

The off-site digital tour platform unlocks new opportunities for institutions to display their collections, galleries and exhibitions to a global and more diverse audience. With the ongoing impact to the travel and tourism industries, this comes at a time when institutions have seen a dramatic drop in visitor numbers and the digital experience they offer has become more important than ever.

To date, virtual tours can feel like a solitary one-way experience. Curatours is a solution to this, making the experience a social one that can be shared with multiple people including a real, life guide who you can talk to and ask questions.

“At Cooperative Innovations bringing people together virtually is our aim and after four years of R&D coupled with the Innovate UK grant we are developing the technology to achieve this.” — Emma Cooper, Project Lead

There are two parts to the ‘Curatours’ platform, the end user app and a maker, which together help cultural institutions to create, experience and host social offsite tours.

Curatours App
The Curatours app offers an accessible and enhanced way for visitors to experience museums and galleries, safely at their own pace or together with friends, classmates and family without having to travel anywhere. Whilst on a tour, visitors can:

• Look in detail at 3D captures of artefacts and environments;
• Take part in Live Tours and ask questions to the guide;
• Interact with their friends, family, classmates and other visitors;
• Read text, view images and watch videos;
• Watch pre-recorded 3D performances;
• Listen to audio recordings.

Curatours Maker
Curatours Maker enables creatives, gallery designers and heritage site experts to deliver offsite tours for digital visitors to enjoy. By repurposing existing content and creating new material, curators and public engagement teams will have an adaptable way of interpreting, configuring and tailoring tours for different visitors’ needs. Benefits include:

• Easily integrate artefact and environment scans;
• Upload and re-use existing text, image, audio and video content;
• Create rich interactions and repurpose existing interpretations;
• Setup & schedule free or paid Live Tours for specific times;
• Pre-record a tour for visitors to enjoy at their own leisure;
• View artefact and space interaction and usage analytics;
• Link to their online shop;
• Set donation and visitor fee details.

Set to launch in early 2021, the platform is in the development stage with early partners including the Anne Frank House and National Trust Scotland already involved and they’re actively looking for additional partners for the platform launch.

Check out their video below to get a feel for Curatours;

They are currently looking for project partners so if you are interested or know someone who is make sure you share the news with them and get in touch.

Make sure you check out Cooperative Innovations launch blog on how Curatours came to be here for additional information.

Then follow the Curatours Twitter to keep up to date with them and see what happens in 2021.

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 200 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

Curatours — bringing back visitors to museums, galleries and heritage sites. was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alongside the day-to-day work of looking after clients and trying out VR experiences, one of most important parts of my job is showing virtual reality to the general public.

I believe that a VR experience begins before you even put a headset on, it starts the moment you enter the room. There is a right and a wrong way to demo VR.

It is hugely important that we make people feel comfortable before and after trying VR. I am quite obsessive about how we (as a company) demo content, but that is all down to years of learning the best practices.

I think that is a good thing that I obsess about this, and that my team cares too.

On several occasions, we have been requested to run VR cinemas or demos for upsetting content. A particular memory that remains with me is when we were running screenings for a VR documentary piece about a tragic event that took place in London.

We were aware of the immense emotional impact that this piece would have on the witnesses, survivors and bereaved.

We made it a priority to ensure we have the support of NHS mental health and wellbeing professionals that could be there to talk with and comfort anyone who needed help.

It turned out, I needed it too.

In this job, you become an emotional sponge. You’re the first point of contact for people when they come out of the headset. You absorb a lot of information and a lot of emotion from other people.

I spoke with witnesses of the tragedy and those who were directly affected — those who were in the streets and those who lost friends and loved ones. I heard harrowing stories. My heart broke over and over again for three days straight, but I wanted to be the right kind of support from the moment the headset came off. I had to be there to listen, to comfort, and to be there for any questions or comments.

After talking to one of the NHS workers about the process of showing the documentary she was interested to learn more about how, as a professional working on an intense project, I was being affected. I was shocked to discover (after being assessed by the NHS worker) that I was showcasing early signs of PTSD.

It is only now, that I realise how much psychological weight from people’s stories you hold onto.

I really appreciate the NHS workers being present during the screenings and I feel incredibly grateful that they were able to look after us and our viewers. This experience is one that I will not ever forget. It has allowed me to really reflect on the importance of having the correct support.

We were extremely fortunate to have the support of NHS workers who helped those in need, but also for helping us maintain our own mental fortitude when handling such heart-breaking topics.

Emotional Impact

Film can elicit emotion. Film in VR does this on an amplified scale. We think VR film tends to be about 4x more impactful than traditional film. If someone watches a 15-minute VR film, it will have an emotional impact akin to someone who watched a 60-minute traditional film.

It can bring joy, humour, nostalgia… But what happens when content makes people feel upset, frustrated, or even re-live a tragic moment in life? As the person running a VR showcase, how do you react?

If you are the first person that a viewer sees when the headset is removed, what is your responsibility in that moment?

I have been to events where the viewer finished a VR experience, they are tearful, maybe even openly weeping, they’re rushed along so the headset can be used for the next person. This is a damaging way to conduct a VR screening.

Being a part of the industry, I can see from both sides, when it comes to running event, you have the pressure to get numbers through each day but we have a responsibility to people that we are showing the content to.

Sometimes if content has certain themes you cannot throw anyone into the mix. Warnings and conversations need to happen.

Additionally, it is important for everyone watching the experiences to have time afterwards to decompress.

Our process for running VR cinemas, particularly for emotional content.

Inform the participants.
Let your audience know how the screening works, how the headset is used. Ensure they are comfortable and know any belongings they brought with them are in a safe space. “There are no fire alarm drills scheduled today, the exit is this way, if you need to contact me or do not want to watch it anymore, you can remove the headset at any time.

Provide Context about the experience.
This can be done in a group setting, let them know what they are watching, if there are any trigger warnings to be aware of. Reiterate that they can remove the headset at any time if they no longer want to watch.

Monitor the experience.
Watch your audience whilst they are in VR, the film has taken over several of their senses and now you are responsible for them and their wellbeing. Learn how people tend to react at certain moment of the experience. Look out for outliers as these are the people who are having difficulties. It could be the headset is not working, it could be they are emotional, or perhaps something else.

Allow decompression after watching the content.
When the film has ended, make an announcement saying thank you for joining us, if you have not done so, you can remove your headset now. Please take your time, there is no rush to leave the room. Take as long as you need. People may want to talk to one another, they may want to talk to you. Be empathetic, listen to what they have to say, try to answer questions where possible but be ready to admit you do not know the answer.

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 200 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

I showed signs of PTSD after screening a VR experience. was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In our latest webinar our health and safety guru, Verity Nalley was back alongside Bertie Millis to host our next Headset 101 webinar.

In the first design and deploy webinar Verity covered…

• Current Impacts on events (according to government guidance UK)
• Doing better for the industry (Staff training & better cleaning)
• Compliance & Liability
• Check and protect your guests

If you missed the first Headset 101 webinar you can watch it back here.

This time, Verity and Bertie discuss the work they did on LFF Expanded, the immersive technology strand of the BFI London Film Festival. Putting the COVID-safe plans to the test with a physical installation that ran during the festival. A great case study to talk about and explore.

Key Points from Webinar

• Creating user journey for LFF Expanded
• LFF Case study
• What we knew/ how did we achieve this?
• COVID Safety
• UVISAN units

If you want to learn more or need help with your up coming activation get in touch with Verity: — veritynalley@gmail.com

#VirtualLibrary is powered by the VR marketing agency, Virtual Umbrella. We provide agency services and consultancy to immersive companies. If you’re in need of a marketing campaign, someone to run your email newsletter, or a team to do some deep dive research on your competitors, let us know 👋

We’re also open to sponsored posts and advertising on #VirtualLibrary so if you’re interested in reaching about 200 immersive folks per month with your messaging, contact us via: bertie@virtualumbrella.marketing

Update: How to design and deploy COVID-safe physical VR installations was originally published in Virtual Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.