A Reflection on Virtual Reality Design for Psychological, Cognitive and Behavioral Interventions: Design Needs, Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

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Designing “Safer Water.” A Virtual Reality Tool for the Safety and the Psychological Well-Being of Citizens Exposed to the Risk of Natural Disasters

“…Previous studies have shown how co-design techniques can be effectively used to design virtual scenarios related to specific situations, as it allows to obtain valuable information from experts in the reference sector (Eisapour et al, 2020 ). In our case, we have chosen to also involve HCI experts and VE designers from the beginning, a choice that was made only in a few of the previous works (Bettelli et al, 2019 ; Tabbaa et al, 2020 ). Involving this type of experts from the early design stages allowed us to focus not only on the contents of the VR environment (e.g., danger indicators of a flood, correct evacuation behaviors), but also on the technical aspects and interactive modalities (e.g., feedback, gamification elements), obtaining a global view of the various parts to be taken into consideration.…”

“…Indeed, co-design has been effectively applied in other areas related to VR experience. It was mainly used in mental health domain, to create virtual scenarios to facilitate psychological, cognitive, and behavioral interventions for dementia, anxiety disorder, eating disorders, pain management (Tabbaa et al, 2020), and fear of public speaking (Flobak et al, 2019). Co-design techniques have also been effectively applied to develop VR simulations and serious games to promote physical activity (Boger et al, 2018;Eisapour et al, 2020) and to enrich user experience in cultural and naturalistic site (Bettelli et al, 2019).…”

“…Regarding the first point, several techniques were applied in the initial stages of requirements collection and/or experience planning, including affinity diagrams (Bettelli et al, 2019), brainstorming (Lukosch et al, 2012;Lyk et al, 2020;Tabbaa et al, 2020), focus group sessions (Boger et al, 2018;Eisapour et al, 2020), and interviews (Lukosch et al, 2012;Teng et al, 2019). Regarding the second point, these activities mainly involved end users (Lukosch et al, 2012;Teng et al, 2019) and/or experts in the specific application domain, for example kinesiologists for applications to promote physical activity (Eisapour et al, 2020) or managers of private security companies to design virtual training for police forces (Lukosch et al, 2012), while only few studies also involved experts in new technologies and HCI (Bettelli et al, 2019;Tabbaa et al, 2020). On the one hand, the codesign activity helped to obtain valuable feedback from experts (Eisapour et al, 2020), and to identify design recommendations for the specific application domain (Boger et al, 2018;Eisapour et al, 2020).…”

“…From a methodological point of view, these works are very heterogeneous in both the co-design techniques used and the type of stakeholders who participated in the activities. Regarding the first point, several techniques were applied in the initial stages of requirements collection and/or experience planning, including affinity diagrams (Bettelli et al, 2019 ), brainstorming (Lukosch et al, 2012 ; Lyk et al, 2020 ; Tabbaa et al, 2020 ), focus group sessions (Boger et al, 2018 ; Eisapour et al, 2020 ), and interviews (Lukosch et al, 2012 ; Teng et al, 2019 ). Regarding the second point, these activities mainly involved end users (Lukosch et al, 2012 ; Teng et al, 2019 ) and/or experts in the specific application domain, for example kinesiologists for applications to promote physical activity (Eisapour et al, 2020 ) or managers of private security companies to design virtual training for police forces (Lukosch et al, 2012 ), while only few studies also involved experts in new technologies and HCI (Bettelli et al, 2019 ; Tabbaa et al, 2020 ).…”

Extended Reality for Enhanced Telehealth During and Beyond COVID-19: Viewpoint

“…Telehealth allows patients to access health care with no need to travel, and XR can further enable access to care with no need for concern they will be judged. It will be important to explore avatars in XR telehealth as a solution for stigmas of visible medical conditions (eg, skin disease and burns) [ 177 , 178 ], criminal history or potential (eg, prevention of offense related to sexual preference) [ 179 , 180 ], and provide unprecedented opportunities for mental health and wellness [ 86 , 181 , 182 ].…”