Introduction
Effective Virtual Reality (VR) learning experiences are immersive, engaging and impactful. Designing such experiences requires a deep understanding of spatial design principles.
This article explores some key spatial design strategies to optimize VR learning environments, delving into the importance of spatial layout, navigation flow, and interactive elements that allow learners to intuitively engage with immersive virtual experiences. By presenting spatial design principles in the context of immersive learning use cases designed for clients, it demonstrates how thoughtful VR spaces can result in improved learning outcomes and desired business impact.
Effectiveness of VR Experiences in Learning
Humans have relied on kinesthetics and tactile inputs to learn and understand concepts from an early age. Think of using our fingers to count and of slicing a pizza to grasp fractions in the initial days of learning mathematics or tracing alphabets and words on sand to learn writing in a specific language.
The Embodied Cognition Theory is based on the premise that the brain and body work together to create knowledge, making learning sticky when physical experiences are involved. While traditional classrooms and digital modes mainly engage the brain through auditory and visual senses, Virtual Reality (VR) takes it a step further--it integrates kinesthetic and tactile inputs into the learning experience using haptic feedback.
The concept of perceptual fidelity achieved by VR suggests that virtual interactions can activate neural pathways like physical interactions in the real world do. This concept forms the foundation for designing VR learning experiences that simulate real life environments and actions.
Figure 1: Embodied Cognition in Virtual Reality
A 7–8-minute VR session equals 30–60 minutes of eLearning, doubling focus and engagement through immersion. Unlike traditional methods, VR assesses real-world skill application, not just comprehension through knowledge checks.
Use of Virtual Reality as Learning Mode
Virtual Reality (VR) is a highly recommended mode of learning for high-risk tasks, especially in the Energy & Utilities and Logistics sectors, which requires the ability to operate complex equipment and make critical decisions.
Encora has explored several potential use cases for leveraging VR learning experiences in these industries, including 3D simulations of the electric grid, performing bucket rescues of operations personnel at heights from overhead powerlines, equipment inspection and maintenance, outage restoration, handling hazardous substances, driving SOPs, vehicle fleet maintenance, and so on.
A hands-on approach in a virtual environment aims to enhance muscle memory. Virtual models of industrial spaces, such as substations and power plants are designed with rich details to enhance immersive, multisensory experiences.
Digitally twinning complex spaces to effectively direct the learner’s attention to key areas of action require careful planning and foresight. Unlike movies, where compositing, editing, and camera movements are pre-framed to guide the audience's focus and the control lies in the director’s hands, VR experience allows the users to directly manipulate the view with the freedom to explore the environment and interact with objects. VR experiences require a higher level of realism and accuracy as the user can navigate through them.
VR Experiences Design Guidelines
Designing for VR takes a lot of deliberation than other digital modes because in the VR environment when the users detect a mismatch between their senses, the illusion of being in another world breaks down. Abrupt scene transitions, sudden cuts, or poorly placed actors and objects can disorient and disengage users. Thoughtful spatial design is essential for maintaining realism in an immersive experience.
One of the key design and visual considerations during the initial stages of building the VR experience is deciding whether to use 360-degree video, 2D or 3D CGI, or a hybrid approach for VR. The purpose of the experience is the main determinant of the visual strategy. CGI is often the most suitable choice for scenarios that are difficult to replicate in real life—such as driving in hazardous weather conditions or navigating challenging terrains. Each requirement involves multiple factors that influence the selection of the visual approach.
Encora recommends 360-degree live video for safety drills as this allows users to vicariously experience, explore and observe safety incidents in a controlled, risk-free environment. These experiences are usually exploratory, needing the user's spatial awareness and observational skills more than interacting with objects.
On the other hand, when users need to interact with objects within the VR environments such as understanding how to operate, troubleshoot, maintain equipment or follow standard procedures and protocols in high-risk situations—the CGI format with 3D visuals is typically recommended.
Case Study A - Safety Practices in a Substation
Encora recommended and designed a 360-degree VR experience for a learning use case on safety practices to be followed by the operators in an electric substation. Users needed to fully grasp the consequences of neglecting safety practices, like wearing proper PPE. Therefore, the experience included a storytelling approach to simulate a fictional high-hazard scenario involving an arc flash explosion. The experience was designed in a first-person POV to immerse users in the incident and highlight the impact of unsafe practices. The scripted scenario, filmed in a substation with actors, depicted an operator switching a circuit breaker without PPE, leading to an arc flash explosion. Makeup was used to simulate third-degree burns for impact.
Pre-production plans were made with the crew for the location, equipment, makeup, and other props. The objective was to ensure the highest level of realism portraying a typical workday of an operator.
Case Study B – Package Van Driver Training for a Global Logistics Company
A leading logistics company partnered with Encora to design an innovative VR-based experience for their fleet of drivers. The goal was to provide drivers with a highly realistic, interactive experience of driving a package van according to the company’s driving SOPs before participating in an actual ride-along with an instructor for their certification.
Encora designed a 360-degree video-based VR micro-learning experience series that recreated the real-life experience of a driver’s day-to-day tasks. The immersive format allowed users to virtually step into their daily routine of a package van driver, gaining familiarity with vehicles, routes, and operational procedures in a safe, controlled environment. The experience included key scenarios such as navigating traffic, managing package deliveries, parking, and responding to real-world challenges encountered during a typical workday.
The substation safety practices and the driver training virtual experiences utilize 360-degree videos simulating the real-world environment to enhance situational awareness, enable immediate learning transfer, and ensure safe real-world scenario handling.
Case Study C – Maintenance and Repair at a Substation
The challenge was to train operators with technical skills across locations to fix faults at power stations. Encora created an immersive 3D VR experience where users enter the virtual switchboard room, inspect the circuit breaker panel, follow safety protocols, and use the required personal protective equipment. Before making repairs, they practice shutting down the power station, resolving the issue, and safely restoring operations.
Case Study D – Merchandise Display Training for Department Store Employees
To achieve a key objective in retail shelf management, an immersive 3D experience was developed to train in-store employees in organizing merchandise displays based on category, store display guidelines, branding, and promotional goals. Employees had to practice organizing the merchandise on the display shelves quickly within a specified time limit and accurately, ensuring products were placed according to category. The immersive experience followed a micro-learning structure with Observe, Practice, and Test as core principles. To enhance engagement, gamification elements such as a leaderboard and badges were incorporated, providing a realistic and interactive virtual learning experience.
Let’s explore the key design considerations that contributed to creating a seamless and intuitive user experience across these VR experience case studies and other immersive experiences developed for different customers.
Design Considerations
UI/UX: Video-based VR suits structured lessons with limited interactivity (e.g., guided lessons, interactive videos), while 3D-based VR offers immersive, hands-on learning. A well-designed UI should be intuitive, spatially aware, and user-friendly for an effective experience.
3D-based VR experiences offer a hands-on, immersive learning experience where users interact with the environment. The UI needs to be spatially aware, ergonomic, and seamlessly integrated into the world. In VR videos, controllers and laser pointers are used for intuitive hand gestures for menu item selection. To enhance user guidance, consider using arrows or floating markers to direct attention to key points of interest or actions, ensuring the next task or destination is always clear. Adapting familiar 2D UI patterns for VR helps reduce the learning curve.
For video-based UI, use floating panels within the user’s field of view, like a virtual movie screen, with minimal menus. In 3D VR environments, UI elements can be anchored as holographic panels or interactive objects at a comfortable distance (1-2 meters).
Eye and gaze tracking can enable hands-free interaction in 3D-based VR. To maintain focus, keep menus simple and limit on-screen UI to essentials. Place progress indicators and prompts in peripheral vision, while key menus and notifications remain within or near the user’s line of sight.
A radial menu allows for quick point-and-click selection.
Interaction and Optimization: In a video-based VR approach, users interact with a floating UI overlay using gaze selection or motion controllers. Navigation is simple, with basic controls like play, pause, and clickable hotspots. In contrast, a 3D-based VR approach enables physical exploration and object interaction, requiring spatial navigation.
Video UI relies on on-screen prompts, while in 3D-based VR, UI enhances engagement with haptic feedback, sound cues, and interactive objects. The position of the character refers to the position of the headset along the X, Y, and Z axes and the recommended distance of the character in the first person POV is 1 meter away from the camera.
One of the basics of creating VR experiences is using low poly (polygon mesh) models. Low-poly models boost performance by reducing computational load, ensuring high frame rates (90+ FPS) essential for VR comfort. They also enable seamless interaction, preventing lag and stuttering during object interactions for a smoother experience.
Optimized texturing improves performance by reducing GPU load through compressed textures, minimizing lag and frame drops. It also enhances user comfort by preventing motion sickness, as sharp, well-mapped textures maintain visual stability and immersion. In 3D-based VR experiences,
PBR (Physically Based Rendering) textures simulate realistic materials like wood, metal, and glass, making virtual objects feel more lifelike and immersive.
Comfort and Accessibility: In a video-based VR experience, a stationary view helps minimize motion sickness, while large, clear UI elements reduce eye strain. In 3D-based VR, movement should use teleportation or smooth locomotion to prevent nausea, with UI integrated into the scene for readability and contrast. In the VR driving simulation, gradual transitions between scenes and avoiding movement of viewpoint without the user’s input are essential to avoid motion sickness. It can be achieved by minimizing any rapid or unexpected changes in the virtual environment. This ensures that the movements are smooth, and user-driven so that users have a sense of agency and full control over events.
Scale and Proportion: Maintaining realistic object proportions (proper scaling) further enhances user immersion. For 360 videos, the projection of the output can be of equirectangular or cube map type. Equirectangular projection has double the horizontal coverage of the vertical, creating a curved effect. In post-production, overlaying text on equirectangular videos may appear warped. Maintaining realistic proportions and scale within the virtual environment is necessary to ensure that objects in VR spaces feel natural. The character in the substation video-based VR scenario is supposed to interact with a circuit breaker, walkie-talkie, large HMI display showing alarm status, and other objects present in the substation. The video was planned and filmed from an angle that ensured the objects appeared true to their real-life size. Oversized or undersized objects can break immersion and disorient users.
Engagement & Gamification: Video-based VR experiences use quizzes, hotspots, and branching choices, with overlays and timelines for progress tracking.
3D-based VR learning emphasizes hands-on interaction with 3D models, simulations, and
scenario-based challenges, rewarding users with visual feedback like badges and floating progress indicators.
Performance & Optimization: Video-based VR requires high-quality streaming and compression for smooth playback with minimal lag. 3D-based VR needs real-time rendering optimization to balance graphics and performance, ensuring stable frame rates, especially on standalone headsets. Efficient mesh topology improves performance by reducing GPU load, ensuring faster rendering and high FPS—critical for VR comfort. It enables smoother animation and deformation, with evenly distributed edge loops preventing visual glitches or unnatural stretching. Moreover,
well-optimized meshes enhance collision detection and physics, ensuring accurate interactions in
real-time VR environments, reducing lag and unpredictable behavior.
For the driver training VR, multiple cameras were used from different angles such as helmet mount, and tripod mount to shoot videos from different perspectives. Vehicle height was a key factor for the user's point of view.
The substation VR video was shot with a stereoscopic camera on the actor's hard hat, providing a first-person POV. Unlike a third-person perspective, users experience the scene through the character’s eyes. This POV determined positioning, projection, scale, lighting, overlays, and postproduction considerations. Ensure that the VR field of view is not overcrowded with objects. The objects that require the user’s attention or interaction should be placed within the user’s grasp.
Lighting
Evenly distributed lighting with well-balanced exposure is crucial to avoid breaking the illusion of reality as wrong lighting may tend to highlight areas where the user need not focus. The video for the substation safety VR was shot indoors in a control room. Therefore, the existing lighting in the room was used to ensure consistent illumination in the video.
For the driver training, outdoor lighting was used which meant that optimum environmental conditions were considered while shooting the videos.
In 3D VR experiences, especially for indoor scenes baked lighting is the preferable option. It is ideal when performance is a top priority, such as in standalone VR headsets. Baked lighting also works well for pre-rendered cutscenes (cinematic sequences in a VR experience that are rendered in advance) or highly optimized VR experiences.
Sound and Visual Effects
3D sound is crucial for VR because it makes virtual environments feel more real by improving immersion and spatial awareness. It mimics how sound behaves in the real world—changing based on direction, distance, and obstacles—so users can locate objects even without seeing them. Technologies like spatial audio and binaural sound adjust the audio as users move, adding depth and realism. This enhances realism and storytelling while also reducing motion sickness by keeping sound and visuals in sync, making VR experiences more natural and engaging.
During the scripting phase of VR experience, much deliberation goes into determining which audio-visual elements need to be added to infuse the story with realistic elements. For example, in the substation safety VR video, when portraying the experience of an arc-flash incident, the right sound effects are needed to reflect how the victim’s hearing may be impacted right after the incident. When showing an injury because of the arc flash, we had to rely on the actor’s makeup as well as visual effects to make it appear realistic while being conscious of the fact that it may be a bit disturbing to the sensibilities.
Text and Graphic Overlays
Virtual reality is more about conveying a story through spatial interactions and no user wants to spend their experiential time reading content on screen. Furthermore, a VR space is loaded with many sensory details, and text and graphic overlays should be used sparingly. Utilizing voice control to simplify interactions allows users to focus on the environment and tasks without excessive manual input. Providing audio cues as feedback to user actions can help reduce onscreen text.
HUD overlays should include visuals and readable fonts integrated seamlessly without disrupting immersion. They display warnings, prompts, checklists, and progress indicators. In the 3D Safety Hazard VR experience, we placed text panels on walls or machinery instead of floating on the screen.
Conclusion
Prioritizing user comfort, intuitive interactions, and UI/UX design are essential for creating effective VR environments that enhance learning outcomes and user satisfaction. With the rise of spatial computing, we can provide collaborative options enabling users from different parts of the world to interact and learn in shared virtual spaces. Further, we can utilize emerging advanced haptic technology to feel textures, resistance, and pressure in VR.
In conclusion, the integration of user-centered design, performance tracking, global collaboration, and haptic feedback—enhanced by AI and VR advancements—makes immersive technology an indispensable tool for learning that demands hands-on practice. As VR continues to evolve, its potential to transform skill-based learning will only expand, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world application.
