I talk with colleagues and collaborators a lot about design philosophy. I’m always in search of better ways of giving an elevator pitch about design. Unfortunately, verbally conveying clear thoughts and justification about design often seems like a difficult task. I sometimes feel like what I end up saying comes off like a bad movie […]
What is VR? Theoretical, Pragmatic, and Practical
I currently work for two very different organizations, Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) and the Center for Immersive Experiences (CIE). At TLT, we play the match game. Our technology expertise is broad. Our goal is to find technology solutions that meet (learning) objectives and resolve (teaching) challenges. We evaluate both content, and technologies, with […]
VR Experience Pitches
After you’ve established what the learning objective(s) of your VR experience will be, it’s time to start thinking of creative ways to achieve it. You’ll want to spend time thinking about your idea, jotting down notes, and evaluating your concept against the characteristics of successful VR experiences. When you believe you have a thoughtful concept, […]
Why design, and research, custom built educational video games?
Quality educational video games take a lot of thought and time to design and produce. Game designers need time to follow a proper process and feel good about what they create. Their careers depend on producing quality work. However, researchers want data, and they want to publish now! Their careers depend on publishing and publishing […]
Characteristics of VR Experience Design
Designing VR experiences is an art. Several forms of art actually. There is no scientific formula for getting it right. There is no sure fire way of replicating the success of one experience into another. Art is an avenue for new ideas and new thinking. Successful art is often something we didn’t know we would […]
Successful Collaboration in Educational Game Design
One of the biggest challenges I face as an educational game designer is convincing, our often non-gamer, collaborators to respect the game design process. Working in a service unit at a University, on a non-academic career path, I look for advice from the few academic professionals who advocate for games in education. One of those […]
In the Presence of Consequence.
Hello VR Friends, in this blog post I describe the predominate design philosophy that has driven our VR work to date. It’s a philosophy that has resulted in producing primarily instructional based VR experiences for the purposes of teaching, learning and research. I will describe what I see as flaws in this philosophy and I […]
Five Questions about VR
Hello VR friends! This is a year in review of sorts. I have been around a lot of research this year which was something very new for me. I am not a researcher. I am a media production specialist, an experience designer and a technology enthusiast. I am not a researcher but I do have […]
VR PSI Rating
A global pandemic has forced much of the world to adopt new everyday practices. As we scramble to find ways to replace “real” experiences, more and more activities are finding virtual solutions. People, whether they want to or not, are becoming acutely aware of how well technology can authentically replicate experiences that may now be […]
Immersive Experiences Development Guidelines (VR)
This is a set of guidelines we use to both evaluate concepts, and develop experiences, to ensure they take advantage of characteristics that separate virtual reality from other mediums. Our Goal: To find ways to best leverage virtual reality, not to replicate or replace reality simply for the technical achievement of doing so but, to […]