Safety Training — VR Experince

How to make workplace safer with VR training?

USER
Factory Workers
Vocational trainees
Vocational Instructors
Factory managers

MY ROLE
UX UI Design Lead
Video Editor
Product Owner

TOOLS Unity 3D
Figma, XD & Illustrator
Adobe After effects, Photoshop,
Miro Whiteboard
Jira Project management

TEAM
Chance Team
 (5 People)

Safety VR team

︎TASK

To create safety training in VR to reduce
workplace injuries by 30%

︎EXPERIENCE

We designed and deliver a prototype where users were introduced to a virtual environment of a workshop, using the Oculus Quest VR headset. Users learned to safely and effectively operate a virtual tablesaw using "virtual training". There are two seperate interfaces, one for trainee to learn using Table saw in VR. Second for instructors to setup courses and evaluate Trainee’s work.

︎DEMO

Demo Video - Safety VR application running on Oculus Rift & Quest.

︎PROCESS

I follow a simple design thinking process with 6 minimal steps:

︎PERSONA

After getting the brief from the client 1st step was to create a distinctive Persona for the project:

︎USER FLOW

I create a detailed step by step user flow to get the team aligned on the project. The whole team would use this artefact every morning for daily scrum & we would discuss status around this important UX artefact for the entire duration of the project.



Detailed version:

Error States:
We have 2 Error (fail) States for particular case.
1. When user removes thier hands from the safe positions -  Saw stops warning appears and alarm sound starts.
2. If user places thier hands too close  to  the  blades - Blood splashes and alarm sound starts.

Storyboard:
I worked on a detailed UX Storyboard that covers the entire experience but focuses more on the FTUE Onboarding Experience. Puting on the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is a very important part of any Safety Training. We adopted that real world experience to VR safety training.

We used these to share status with stakeholders, clients and external suppliers. It served as an invaluable document & artefact to explain my design intentions and  interactions to artists & engineers. 

︎USER INTERFACE

I designed the basic 2D UI in Adobe XD, Figma & Photoshop to start.

Then made interactive mockup in Unity to share my vision for inteactions in the experience.

Trainee User Interface:

Trainee user pick thier training here.

Instructor User Interface:

This interface lets intructors pick training module for various exquipment. POC (Proof of concept) was delivered only for Table saw.

Instructions tablet
We used a tablet as a video screen on which user could watch tutorial and follow the motion & exact grips for using the saw. We use the same feature for onboarding  & other instructions.

It was created as an iPad like tablet and has unique features such as

• Tablet always follows the user to be always available within the arms reach. 
• It always faces(look at) the user. 
• Plays gifs of instructions on a loop for easy reference. 
• Even if the user throws the tablet away across the roon the tablet slowlys makes its way to the user.
• User can move the tablet and place it to float right in front of them wherever it is convienient. 

Control scheme
I worked with Engineers & Game designers to create a control scheme that would be intuitive & user friendly to use for an audience who have never used any VR. We had to be mindful that this would be thier first ever VR experince, and design around it.

︎ USER TEST PREP

I thoroughly setup a survey to collect user feedback. I used Google forms to create them. User’s filled our forms after thier VR session on an iPad. Survey took rough 10mins to fill.

︎USER TEST 

Safety VR prototype was user tested at 3 separate locations with 37 unique users.

︎USER TEST FINDINGS

• 50% off the testers were in the age group of 40-60 years, followed by 31% of the users in the age group of 25-39. 34%or users were Male & 67% Female.
• 79% of users really enjoyed the VR safety training & felt they learnt a new skill. The rest felt like an experienced user.

Survey results were carefully collected and thoroughly analyzed. Findings were collated and shared with stakeholders.

• 98% of the users completed table saw training.
• 80% of the users had less or no VR experience before, yet 94% of the users found it easy to navigate in the VR workshop to use a virtual table saw.

• Over 58% of users felt confident to be able to cut a piece of wood with a table saw after the VR training.

• One of the younger users mentioned that he used to work with table saws regularly and this training experience was quite similar to reality.
• Over 85% of the users felt confident that they can avoid hurting themselves using a table saw(cuts, bach strains etc.)

Younger users were quite keen to try out the new technology.

Users without prior gaming experience seemed to take a bit longer to figure things out but overall, everyone seemed to enjoy the VR training and were enthusiastic about the possibility of learning new skills using VR.

︎RESULT

Users answered a survey after the Safety VR training.

78% of the users felt confident they can avoid getting hurt while using a saw after the table saw training.

When asked the users

Would you like to try the table saw training again?

One enthusiastic user wrote in the survey:

“Yes, if there would be additional elements that can be learned”.

Another mentioned:

“Yes. The environment appears to be fun and educational.”

One of the younger users mentioned:

“I used to work with table saws regularly and this training experience was quite similar to reality.”

︎ CONCLUSIONS

One of the main expected outcomes of the study was that users would feel more secure about their safe use of an actual tablesaw, and we saw that, when completed, over 58% of the users felt confident to be able to safely and effectively cut a piece of wood with a tablesaw after the vr training.

Another expected outcome was that VR training would motivate and engage users due to it's 'ecological validity'. In research, the ecological validity of a study means that the methods, materials and setting of the study must approximate the real-world that is being examined.

Moreover, Dr Glyn Lawson, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, states: "Health and safety training can fail to motivate and engage employees and can lack relevance to real-life contexts. Our research, which has been funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, suggests that virtual environments can help address these issues, by increasing trainees' engagement and willingness to participate in further training. There are also business benefits associated with the use of virtual environment training, such as the ability to deliver training at or near the workplace and at a time that is convenient to the employee."

In addition to users engaging and learning, 79% of the users really enjoyed the VR safety training and felt they learnt a new skill. The rest felt like an experienced user. 98% of the users completed the saw training. 80% of the users had less or no VR experience before, yet 94% of the users found it easy to navigate in the VR workshop to use a virtual table saw.

Detailed study report link︎︎︎

Misc images

Safety VR Experince will be Launching soon...

Take a look at some more of my work ︎