Designing Digitally
12/11/2018
Augmented reality and virtual reality - referred to as AR and VR - are rising stars in the digital universe. AR and VR have the power to enhance digital experiences ranging from movies to video games, making them much more lifelike and realistic. With virtual reality, you can almost literally step into the story, or step into a completely separate digital universe. With augmented reality, you can bring another universe into this one. But entertainment is not the only field ripe with possibility for AR and VR. Both types of technology also have nearly unlimited potential for use in corporate training for a broad variety of businesses.
Virtual reality fully immerses the user in an alternate reality. Users must wear a VR headset, resembling goggles, which completely blocks out their view of true physical surroundings. And, if the VR experience includes audio, users may wear headphones or earbuds to hear the sounds of the VR world. Augmented reality uses a digital overlay to interact with real world experiences. With augmented reality, trainees are still aware of what is happening or going on around them. Therefore, AR can provide helpful guidance in real world situations.
A fully immersive VR experience allows users to step into an entirely different world. This is particularly useful for training because it elicits the learner’s genuine, instinctual responses in a given situation, including intense scenarios. VR is especially useful for training for high-risk jobs and positions such as security guards, lineworkers, drivers, pilots, or even surgeons.
Because VR has the potential to engage all of the senses, it makes it difficult for trainees to remember they are in a simulation. As a result, they often act and respond the same way they would if faced with the scenario in the real world. This lets trainers or coaches see an accurate representation of how trainees may perform under real world conditions, without the risks of real world consequences.
VR training can also give employees the opportunity to try different tactics in order to create the best outcomes in any situation. As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect. The best way to perfect your responses in any given situation is to repeat them again and again. VR allows trainees to repeat experiences again and again in order to make the best response an automatic reaction.
While VR solutions can help create entirely new experiences, AR can equip trainees with tools to learn in the real world. Imagine you need to train tour guides or museum docents. You can design an app or website for them to access on their smartphones. Trainees point the phone’s camera at a piece of artwork, then an avatar appears on their phone to tell them about the piece. They can explore the museum on their own and learn about all the displays so they are able to communicate that information to clients, guests, or visitors. This also helps maintain continuity and uniformity between tour experiences.
AR training also allows trainees to review information as many times as they need to in order to be able to deliver it smoothly and seamlessly. Most people learn at different paces. Some people may only need to watch a video once or twice to be able to retain and repeat key information, while others may need to watch it several more times to accomplish the same goal.
As another example, imagine training your sales staff on new items or products. They could simply point their phone or tablet camera at an item and pull up detailed product information. Using an avatar or video for training, however, also allows you to influence how they talk about a certain item or product by pointing out specific selling points using carefully chosen vocabulary.
Most businesses have a few top salespeople who seem to instinctively know exactly how to sell a given product. While they themselves may not even be aware of it, their success often has to do with the specific language they choose to point out the most attractive features of the product. By using AR for training, you can actually harness the brilliance of some of your top salespeople and use it to train your underperforming ones. Using AR in training can help narrow the gap between your top performers and your lowest.
Designing Digitally, Inc. recognizes that AR and VR differences are numerous, but they both offer phenomenal training applications for any business. Whether you want to provide a fully immersive training experience or real world guidance, we can make a program taliored specifically to meet the training needs of your individual business.
To learn more about AR in training or VR in training and how it can improve your employee learning experience, please book a free consultation with one of our knowledgeable experts today.
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