VR Therapy: Multisensory Experience
Constraints
Users/ Stakeholders
Requirements and rationale
Final deliverable must use VR
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Person with autism
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Person’s therapists (occupational, speech, physical)
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Family of person with autism
Requirements
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VR environment must be engaging and enjoyable for user
Rationale: VR application cannot have therapeutic effect if user does not engage in the experience, and does not enjoy it to use it repeatedly.
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VR environment should incorporate creativity and freedom for the user
Rationale :Through user observation, our user told us that he preferred the VR experiences which were less structured and allowed him more freedom. Our expert interviews corroborated this finding.
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VR environment should be intuitive and not have a steep learning curve
Rationale: An intuitive experience is more enjoyable and engaging for the user. Making an intuitive environment allows the user to explore and figure things out for himself, giving him more control, which fulfils the above requirement.
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VR application should be a multisensory experience, pairing and overlapping sensory stimulation
Rationale: In user testing, we found that visual stimulation alone was not enough to keep our user engaged. He most enjoyed the VR environments that incorporated multiple sources of sensory stimulation and engagement.
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VR environment should be highly visually stimulating and exciting
Rationale: From user testing, we observed our user enjoyed environments with more exciting visuals and he told us he liked it when the VR incorporated fantastical elements. Furthermore, in our expert interviews, we learned that for the most part people with autism enjoy bright and engaging visuals.
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VR environment should incorporate audio stimulation
Rationale: In user testing, we found that our user enjoyed having music and other audio stimulation in the VR environment.
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VR environment should incorporate kinesthetic stimulation and interaction
Rationale: In user testing, we found that our user quickly got bored and lost interest with simply visual stimulation and needed more interaction with the VR environment. Our user much preferred the VR environments we tested later that included kinesthetic stimulation and interaction.
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VR application should allow others to observe user’s experience in VR environment
Rationale: Our mission is focused primarily on learning and understanding what makes a VR experience enjoyable for our user and why. To do this, we need to be able to observe our user’s interactions in the VR environment and be able to see what he sees.
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Specifications
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User rates experience on questionnaire with a 4 for “Enjoyable and Engaging”
User says he would use the VR experience again
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• User can doodle, decorate, and draw
• User is encouraged to dance
• User is able to pick music that they prefer (future development)
• User is able to play strings
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User can use VR experience autonomously and does not need external instruction to use it.
Note: further development is still necessary for the environment to be used fully autonomously
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VR environment includes visual, auditory, and kinesthetic stimulation. (see below requirements)
Overlapping sensory stimulation
• Visuals vibrate to the beat of the music in the dancing environment
• User can play strings to make music in the interaction environment
• There are sound effects to drawing and interacting with the environment
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• The VR environment includes bright colors
• The environment includes fantastical elements (huge dinosaur)
• The environment includes dynamic visuals that grab
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• The VR environment includes music in dancing room (still needs further development)
• The VR environment includes sounds of fire, flowing river, fire crackling, chopping wood, music from plucking the strings (future development)
• The VR environment includes interaction sounds native to Tilt Brush (drawing, erasing, moving objects etc.)
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• The user is able to walk around in the VR environment
• The user uses the hand controllers to interact with the environment
• The environment encourages user to draw and dance
• The environment includes actions such as picking fruit, chopping logs, catching fish (needs further development)
• The user can pluck strings in the interaction environment to make music (future development)
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The user’s experience in the VR environment is mirrored onto to the computer
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Project Name: VR Therapy: Multisensory experience
Client: Ashley Carrick, TherapyOS
Team Members: Abizar Bagasrawala, Danqing Gao, Alex Samland, Di Wu
Date: May 30, 2017
Project Definition
Mission statement
Understand what components of a VR multisensory experience are enjoyable and engaging for our user, as a first step to create a VR therapy application for people with autism.
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A mockup VR environment for TherapyOS VR developers of an enjoyable and engaging VR multisensory experience for our user.
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Project deliverable
Table P1. Requirements, rationale and specifications
