Richard Eastgate, Mirabelle D'Cruz and John R. Wilson
Virtual Reality Applications Research Team (VIRART), Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Operations Management, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.
This paper discusses the development of a strategy for the
design of Virtual Environments (VEs), and how it was applied to the development
of a Virtual Environment Training (VET) package. As Virtual Reality (VR)
technology becomes more widely used in the work place the issue of 'whether
we should use VR' decreases in importance and is replaced by 'how should
we use VR?' Having pinpointed a practical need appropriate for the application
of VR the correct techniques need to be employed in order to design an
effective VR solution. A successful VE package will use VR technology
to best satisfy the needs of the organisation and the user. This requires
a multi-disciplinary approach incorporating not just an understanding
of VR technology, but also an appreciation of the domain in which the
technology is to be applied and the needs of the expected user population.
A VE can be a sophisticated medium for the transfer of information, both experiential and presented, to the user. In some applications this capability is not critical to the success of the VE. In training however the transfer of information is the prime purpose of the application. Thus the success of a VET, and therefore the techniques used in its development, are quantifiable in terms of the amount of information transferred to the user. This makes training a useful area for research into the development of VEs.
At VIRART the development of a VET package involved experts from four areas; training, education, VE development and human factors. Existing training theories, specifically organisation, task and person analysis, have been used in combination with an understanding of constructivist and experiential education theories. Long term research at VIRART has highlighted many useful techniques in the field of VE development which have been adopted in the VET package where appropriate. Furthermore, the specifics of this particular type of VE have led to the development of new techniques. The authors are already aware of the importance of a user-based approach when developing VEs; this is even more important in a VET where the usability of the system will strongly affect its utility. These areas of expertise have been combined to enable the adoption of an appropriate training strategy, the design of the VE within which training is to take place, the design of the virtual training task itself, and the development of a suitable user interface which will allow effective user interaction. The potential for applying this VE development strategy to other application areas is discussed.