VR

VR is a type of immersive experience that involves simulating reality using computers. Headsets are a vital component of VR, as you can use reality headsets to experience realistic images, sounds, and even sensations—all of which help replicate the feeling of being in a real environment or an imaginary world. While it isn’t always possible to do so, an authentic VR environment makes it possible to engage all five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste).

AR

AR takes a real-world environment and augments elements using computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics, or GPS data. The point of AR is to augment existing reality and to add to it in one way or another. Currently, smartphones and tablets are the most common way to access AR, but some custom glasses are also being used. Pokémon Go is a great example of AR. With that game, players use their phone to interact with the world around them, finding and catching Pokemon in their own backyards/their surroundings.

MR

MR, which can also be referred to as hybrid reality, merges a virtual world and the real world to create a new environment. In a MR environment both physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact together in real time. MR can place new imagery within a real space and can make it possible to interact with this imagery in our physical world.

XR

XR is one of the more recent technologies emerging in the immersive virtuality space. XR stands for extended reality and encompasses all forms of combined real and virtual environments. AR, MR, and VR are all included in XR. You can think of XR as an umbrella that brings those three terms together. The term XR is helping group all of this technology together and is making this space less confusing for consumers.

When XR Goes Global

When consumers interact with these virtual worlds (whether VR, AR, or MR is being utilized), language is often involved in one way or another. This is why it’s so important to localize the content featured in these worlds. That way, users worldwide can take advantage of the new developments and trends in immersive virtuality without being blocked by a language barrier. Localization also takes cultural differences into account, which can apply to all of the senses that these technologies can utilize to create a more immersive world.

After all, if the point of these technologies is to create truly immersive experiences, then localizing the world you’re creating for your target audience can help accomplish that goal.

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Many people are waiting on pins and needles to see where this technology can take them, but there’s no guarantee that every fan of the metaverse will be able to access this new virtual world. Why? Chances are, non-English speakers can struggle or fail to access the Metaverse if linguistic barriers leave them at the door.

Let’s take a closer look at why global access matters in the metaverse.

Increased Accessibility

For the metaverse to be truly global, accessibility in all its forms should be considered. Language is one of the elements that can really make a difference when it comes to accessibility as not everybody speaks English as a first or even second language.

Horizon Worlds learned this lesson the hard way when they launched in Spain and France, but failed to localize their content in Spanish or French. The native speakers in those regions who didn’t speak English were left confused. Even if a brand eventually localizes their products, they miss out on a lot of opportunities to attract a new audience from the get-go by not localizing their content from day one. Not only can the technology be unusable, but the audience can feel that the products weren’t designed for them and can lose interest in any future launches in their native languages.

Improved Engagement

The entire point of the metaverse is to create a more cohesive, web-like, integrated virtual experience, with new entertainment options and immersive experiences. But how can someone truly become immersed in a virtual world if they don’t understand the language they need to speak and therefore can’t fully interact in that space? This is why localization is the key to not just accessibility, but to engagement as well.

Companies can encourage customers to engage with their brand in the metaverse by creating virtual goods, branded games, and AR and VR showrooms. With the metaverse still being a new experience for consumers, brands have the chance to really stand out in this space, but can quickly lose their customers’ focus by not creating an experience they can understand and deeply engage with due to language barriers.

While the full potential of the metaverse is yet to be seen, the following industries are already anticipating being able to make big moves in this space:

• Gaming
• Digital marketing
• E-commerce
• Education
• Social media
• Fitness
• NFTs
• Digital art
• Entertainment
• Fashion
• Architecture
• Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Learning and development

The Takeaway

Investing in creating a brand presence in the metaverse will require a lot of time and money from brands. The last thing they want is for their investment to fall flat due to a lack of accessibility and engagement because of language barriers. Localizing content into an audience’s native language before launching in their market is key to capturing their initial attention and to retaining them in this virtual space. It’s important to remember that English is not as universal of a language as it gets credit for and that your customers will want to engage with a world they can understand and connect with.

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Standard VR systems tend to rely on VR headsets in order to generate the realistic sensations that create the immersive environment that VR is known for. VR headsets generally include what is known as a head-mounted display (HMD). This HMD is a wraparound headset that blocks light and real-world images so the user can focus on the virtual world they are entering. During 2022, it’s anticipated that consumer AR/VR headset shipments will reach 13.24 million units.

It’s also expected that over time as improvements to VR hardware are made (such as designing smaller and more stylish headsets) and as they become more affordable, that interest in this industry will continue to grow. For example, a less cumbersome device may increase popularity in healthcare training such as training simulations for surgeons.

Let’s take a closer look at the applications and industries that VR can apply to, as well as why localization for VR is becoming a growing need.

Applications and Industries

These are some of the industries that are embracing VR:

• Entertainment. VR is especially common in the gaming sector as VR can create an exceptional game experience for players who want to immerse themselves in the world the game takes place in.
• Training. The learning and development possibilities of VR are nearly endless—especially for providing a more hands-on corporate training experience.
• Tourism. Imagine being able to make someone feel like they are visiting your city and encourage them to visit by introducing them to your most exciting sites virtually.
• Well-being. A more immersive wellness experience can be found when you combine VR with apps that help guide meditation, workouts, mindfulness, and relaxation.
• E-learning. Many students engage with their learning materials and retain them better when using VR during the e-learning experience.

VR Localization

The fact that more industries are adopting VR and with headsets becoming more affordable, it is natural for this technology to reach new markets and people that speak different languages. This is where localization comes in.

When someone is engaging with an immersive experience, you don’t want them to become confused by language or prompts they don’t understand. Localization makes it possible to translate elements like prompts, buttons, in-app menus and messages, narration or voice-over cues in the app the consumer uses. Anything that requires interaction on the part of the user needs to be easily understood by them or else you risk your message not coming across clearly, or the user not being able to properly navigate the experience—all of which can lead to the user leaving a bad review of the app. Content in the app store also needs to be localized, as the app store description helps them select and decide to purchase the app. Making sure this text is in a language the user understands can make a difference in the total number of downloads.

As VR adoption continues to expand and more industries realize the potential it has, it’s only a matter of time before the localization needs in the industry also increase. This is key to ensure access to this technology and its applications are not restricted to English speakers only, making these virtual worlds into more inclusive and diverse spaces.

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For Onboarding Employees

For new employees, the onboarding process is extremely important. It can also be very overwhelming and quite frankly — boring. The onboarding process typically includes an introduction to the organization and its history and key figures within the company, tackles important HR issues, and helps the new employee adjust to the company culture. 

Through games and virtual interactions, VR can make the onboarding experience more engaging and lively, helping new employees weed through a lot of important information in a way that keeps them excited and ready to learn more. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, some companies are even using VR to offer office tours to their new hires safely at home. 

The employees at Ericsson’s USA 5G Smart Factory in Texas utilized VR during their onboarding processes and had almost no face-to-face interaction during their initial training. Instead, they learned directly from their peers in the company’s smart factory in Tallinn from 8,000 km away, thanks to VR-enabled virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing. No travel was required and Ericsson found the process to be more efficient and productive. 

For Practicing On The Job Skills 

One main component of corporate training is to help employees learn how to do their jobs. Employees can practice the skills needed to perform a job across a variety of industries and roles using VR techniques to make training easier and more effective. For example, to make miners’ jobs more safe, cost-effective, and productive, there is VR technology that simulates situations miners encounter at real blast walls. These VR trainings can help them perfect their craft in a safer and less expensive way than building these skills at actual blast walls. 

Airline pilots are another great example of how someone can build their job-required skills in a safe environment. Pilots can interact with virtual cockpits that offer an interactive image of the control panels. They can watch videos of flights from the cockpit jump seat that provide a realistic 360-degree POV. They can also undergo a virtual tour of the aircraft to learn more about their future work environment. 

Compliance and Safety

Employee safety should always be a top priority of employers and VR techniques applied to corporate training can help accomplish that goal. Not only can employees learn the safety and compliance rules they need during e-learning, but if you add in VR, they can also put what they’ve learned into practice to make sure they know how to do their job in a safe and compliant way. There are creators working on OSHA compliance courses that utilize VR techniques.

Jobs that require building muscle memory and to retain important safety information (such as someone who works with live wires) can benefit greatly from practicing their skills in a zero stakes virtual environment. The costs and risks that can come from making mistakes in a VR simulation are practically non-existent, whereas people can get severely injured or even die while training in the real world if they need to perform dangerous tasks. The construction, fire safety, manufacturing, medical, and transportation industries can all benefit from VR in compliance and safety training. 

Why VR Improves Corporate Training

VR offers immersive and engaging experiences that can result in employees learning better and faster during corporate training. That being said, VR is not enough to make up for serious e-learning barriers. For example, language is an important component that can’t be overlooked in corporate training, even when VR is involved. When creating training materials it is imperative that language does not become a distraction for the employee. Localizing e-learning courses into different languages and taking cultural variances into account can help ensure that all of your employees fully understand their training material, feel supported, and stay engaged.

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When it comes to integrating VR into the workplace, the possibilities are endless. However, there are a few key benefits that companies are currently experimenting with that are worth considering. 

Improving Corporate Training

One main benefit of using VR in the workplace, is that employee training and onboarding can benefit greatly from these applications. There are many ways VR can play a role in corporate training, from making basic training materials more engaging to allowing them to practice vital on the job skills in a safe environment. VR applications to e-learning can help increase information retention, can create low stakes practice opportunities, and can allow employees to fully visualize what certain work assignments and environments will look like. 

Collaborating in Interactive Virtual Rooms 

Remote teams can greatly benefit from the connection potential that VR can offer. With more and more employees working remotely than ever before, they may be struggling to communicate in their new digital environment. For example, some employers are embracing collaborative and interactive virtual rooms that utilize 3D visualization features enabled by VR to provide a better replica of in-person meeting experiences for remote employees. These rooms use spatial computing technology to help foster staff collaboration in a more realistic office environment and can allow them to perform more typical in-person teamwork activities, such as writing on a virtual whiteboard like they would in a real life conference room. 

These 3D conference rooms can give employees the option of adding photos, videos, sticky notes, and text to a virtual white board in a way that feels collaborative and engaging. In these virtual rooms, employees may be able to see a 3D representation of an upcoming product design and they even have the potential to add notes directly to the 3D model in real time. These are just a few examples of how VR can make certain aspects of remote working feel less remote.

Creating Virtual Events

With countless in-person events cancelled in 2020 and with so much uncertainty about the future of large gatherings, VR provides a unique opportunity to overcome social distancing barriers. Those who run professional conferences in particular are eager to resume operations and VR can allow them to convert an in-person conference into a fully interactive virtual event. 

Virtual avatars allow attendees to network digitally in a way that feels personal but also doesn’t require physical social interaction. Panelists can host sessions from simulated, 360° rooms where viewers watch and submit questions from the safety and comfort of their own homes. Conference hosts and guests can host in-depth technical tutorials, can present new products, and can initiate thought provoking conversations all with the help of VR.

Satisfying Social Needs

While working from home has its perks, there is no denying that it can get a bit lonely from time to time. VR provides a socially receptive environment for employees to interact with their colleagues by providing the possibility to feel like they’re in the same room together, even though they are in different locations. For most, the biggest struggle to adjusting to working remotely was missing the consistent social interaction a job can provide. Luckily, VR is ready to rise to the challenge of making working remotely feel more social.

The post A Look at VR and a World of Possibilities Amid a Pandemic appeared first on Terra Translations.

With it, VR brings the power of presence. Because our brains treat VR like a real experience, e-learning content that takes advantage of VR techniques has the potential to be extremely engaging, amongst a slew of other benefits. 

1. Engagement 

When it comes to fostering engagement during e-learning, VR is hard to beat. VR can captivate an audience, capturing students’ undivided attention and allowing them to learn in an immersive way. A 2016 study in China looked at VR’s effectiveness as a learning tool. The study found that the passing rate for students that engaged with the e-learning material via VR was 93%. The students that did not utilize VR techniques to study the exact same material only had a pass rate of 73%.

2. Experiential & Embodied Learning 

VR can offer students hands-on practice using their own bodies. Imagine during a training being able to interact with different objects in a scene and how much more tangible that experience would feel compared to reading about it or watching someone else doing it? This could be something as small as opening a door or a more in-depth equipment training. Research suggests that when we use our hands or move, we’re able to remember what we learned better.

3. State-Dependent Retention

Research shows that you can recall information better if you’re in the same environment you encoded that information in. VR provides a safe opportunity to learn in an environment similar to one where students may be tested one day, such as a fireman training to learn how to save someone from a burning building. 

4. Deliberate Practice

VR in e-learning thrives on mistakes. Why? When you utilize VR in e-learning, students can practice and get feedback immediately after making a mistake. Students will have the opportunity to fail and test out new solutions in a risk-free setting. This is especially ideal for job training that requires someone to react quickly in stressful situations. VR can help identify performance gaps when the stakes are much lower and can provide valuable online training experiences before entering real-life situations.

5. Visualization

Visualization helps students learn. Instead of staring at a page in a book or hearing a lecturer discuss their experiences, imagine being able to have those experiences yourself? While VR is not a replacement for true reality, it can provide visualized learning experiences. For example, during a VR e-learning opportunity, you may be able to move your head and as you do see what changes around you, just as you would in real life. Visualization can lead to a greater understanding of the material and can help with retention.

6. Storytelling & Empathy With Characters

A famous Stanford study from 1969 found that students who were tasked with memorizing words retained six to seven times more words when incorporating them into a story compared to the students who simply tried to memorize a list. Storytelling has always had an impact on humans, especially when we can empathize with characters. VR can incorporate both storytelling and empathetic characters into e-learning. The potential to impersonate a character yourself while interacting with other characters in the story can enhance the feeling of being immersed in the story, can make the student more invested in the characters, and can increase retention rates.

7. Analysis Abilities

From a creator standpoint, VR can give the opportunity to have more data and insight into the learning experience. Techniques like head and eye tracking, head and body tracking, and heatmaps can give creators insight into how they can improve the learning experience for students. Creators can receive analytics that illustrate the time it takes students to complete tasks in the virtual world or can alert students of any mistakes they make. This high-level access to such valuable data means that VR techniques in e-learning will keep getting better and better.

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