Virtual Reality is a technology that lets you go places, where you can’t normally go. Can a normal person ever visit into a space? Clearly NO, as only some of the elite scientists, astronauts and billionaires are allowed to visit such a beautiful arena. Well, the Solution for such a situation is Virtual Reality where now-a-days the Headset has become the new frontier for the technology. We can clearly say that Headset is more important than the technology. Let us come back to the technology! Virtual Reality inspires EMPATHY a lot as the experiences are recreated in it. It actually takes the Empathy to recreate the other person’s reality and also to bring the experiences ALIVE for the other users. In order to ensure that you are designing with a lot of empathy, then follow the following strategies:
Have Your Own POINT OF VIEW: Virtual Reality is just a tool that requires your very own POINT OF VIEW in order to create an empathy inspired project. You will be taking your audience on a journey that have not experienced ever and you will be guiding them at every step. Therefore, if your creation will have your ‘point of view’, the audience would be able to understand and feel it much better.
Understand the ‘IMMERSIVE’ medium: Virtual Reality is not something ‘PLAIN’; instead, it is very much spherical in every sense. Be it in terms of audio, visual in every direction. You should make your immersive medium very much audience favourable project that will allow them to walk around or even sit in some corner in the project.
Consider the user experience (UX): Virtual Reality is an isolating technology where the user is all alone in the arena. You have to be very careful that you are putting the user in the world that is away from the physical world.
Therefore, by following the above mentioned strategies you will be able to develop an immersive empathy project that will give your users an experience which they will never be going to forget. Developing an Empathy inspired project is difficult, but not impossible and there are many UX Principles for this Immersive medium.