The hierarchy of needs for user experiences in virtual reality

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is rapidly becoming more widely adopted by various industries, and virtual content is just as rapidly becoming available for consumers. However, there is a lack of guidelines and standards for VR content to be held to in terms of experiential design. Because VR is a relatively new media form for consumers, there is a high risk of user attrition due to the novelty of the service. Therefore, if the first experience of the technology is with poorly made content, users will be much less likely to use VR again. Therefore, as various industries and organizations digitalize and adopt emerging technology such as VR, great care should be given to the way the virtual content and experiences are created. This chapter discusses the key experiential elements of users’ experiences with immersive journalism (IJ), particularly in the case of a virtual museum application. We present a user study of this application and introduce a model based on the results that details the most crucial user experience components for designing VR content.