The Virtual Reality Career Fair

The Virtual Reality Career Fair aims to help university students who are curious or unsure about the career that they wish to pursue but are unable to commit to an internship or work placement. Through the virtual reality experience the student will be able to undergo a simulated day in a life and experience the career as if they were there themself.

Role
Background research, primary research, market analysis, storyboarding, 360 sketching, and the final prototype.

Team Members
Klimson Pin

Project Timeline
March - June, 2023

Overview

My goal is to give students insight into how day to day life would be like in different careers. The use of VR can help achieve this as they are not only immersed in a work environment but they are also interacting with it by performing real work tasks which provides more insight on the day to day than other mediums. My prototype achieves to give university students a chance to have an immersive experience of different careers that they may be interested in without having to invest time in an internship or other programs.

The Problem

Career uncertainty among university students is a common concern. Many students are unsure about what they want to do after graduation or feel overwhelmed by the options available to them as they have spent most of their time in study and do not have enough opportunities for self-exploration, nor do they have the chance to explore the world of work. This uncertainty can be caused by a variety of factors, including limited knowledge about different career paths, a lack of exposure to the workplace, and a rapidly changing job market.

Research

To understand more about this issue I researched online through various journal articles to gain information on how career uncertainty affects university students, what has been done, and what are the specific goals and pain points that need to be addressed. I then conducted interviews with four fellow university colleagues to understand their experiences and pain points on this topic. These are my findings.

The Importance of Experiential Learning

The knowledge of what day to day life is like in the workplace is important to university students as it provides realistic expectations on what life would be like in that career and how their studies and interests translate over.

“However, it is not sufficient for students to just ‘experience’ the workplace passively, they need to actively engage in order to learn”, (Helyer & Lee, 2014) and this is where the issue lies. Students only have access to experiential learning in the workplace through work placements and internships, however not all students are able to undergo these programs or are unsure whether or not they want to invest the time.

During the interviews, many of the participants expressed a felt disconnect between what they are studying and how it would translate over in their potential careers. They also felt that although they are studying they don’t necessarily feel qualified or in other words they feel like an “imposter”.

Stress

Stress is a common occurrence amongst university students and financial stress is another source of stress for college students. Such stressors increase college students' likelihood of mental health disorders. Most students aren’t in the best financial situation to pause working their normal jobs to do work placement or other programs therefore limiting their opportunities to gain experiential learning about the career their interested in.

Many of the interviewees were in their first to second year of university and were all working casual jobs and they stated that with many internships being unpaid it made it difficult for them to pursue it as they would struggle financially.

Market Research

In my research I evaluated the various initiatives that universities provide to help students gain experiential learning of the workplace. These include internships, co-operative education programs, industry projects, simulation exercises, and experiential learning centres. I then performed an analysis on Work Window which is a service that provides a virtual reality experience for those interested in a certain career.

University provided initiatives

Insights

  • Many of these solutions aren’t accessible by all students due to financial constraints or transportation, which can limit many students from participating in programs such as internships and industry projects.

  • The challenge of addressing the absence of interactive experiential learning remains.

  • Continuous evaluation is necessary to keep these programs aligned with the current industry landscape.

Work Window

Findings

Strengths

  • Work Window allows for students to gain deeper insight into a career via an interactive virtual reality experience.

  • The virtual reality aspect allows for students to gain experiential learning without having to commit time to a full internship.

Weaknesses

  • The experience is more like an immersive work tour that provides insight into a career which is useful for students new to the career but may be lacklustre for those already pursuing it.

  • Lacks the depth of experience that an internship provides such as performing the day to day tasks.

Solution Criteria

I then created a criteria for the solution based on the insights I found in my research to guide my ideation process and to ensure I address the pain points.

  • The solution must be accessible by anyone who attends university regardless of personal resources.

  • The learning experience must be in-depth, straightforward, and career-relevant to provide the most realistic insights into a career.

  • The solution must provide an experiential learning experience about a career/workplace.

Ideation

Initial concept

The virtual work experience fair is a virtual reality game that allows the user to experience and learn what the workplace is like and the daily tasks that are done in that career. The game starts in a room surrounded by portals and each portal leads to different careers that the user can enter and explore. Once the user walks into the portal of their choice they are transported straight into the workplace of that career and can interact with the environment to learn more.

Potential Challenges

1. The first challenge is how do I accurately represent the work and work environment of a career without causing any misinformation. Although I can get a basic representation of a work day of a certain career, there are so many different workplaces in the same field therefore it is important that I am aware what type of workplace i’m immersing the user in.

2. The second challenge is how can I represent a career in a realistic way whilst also making it easy for someone with zero knowledge about it to understand what is happening and why they are doing it.

Resolve Strategy

1. To mitigate this I simulated a world that blends the most common aspects of all the different types of workplaces into one where the user will follow the tasks that are non-negotiable in that field, therefore they are not missing out on anything.

2. To provide an experience where the user understands what, why, and how they do the tasks, there will be information around the work environment which explains the reasoning behind the task and the role it plays in that career.

Questions Asked

1. Do you understand what you are meant to do next?

2. Do you feel this represents a workplace accurately and why?

3. Would this experience be useful for you in learning more about that career?

4. How well does this compare to a real work placement/internship?

5. Do you feel curious about the workplace and want to explore/learn more?

Here are my findings…

Findings

  • When asked if they felt curious about the workplace and wanted to explore more, many said that they would only look around and not necessarily explore because there is a big yellow box telling you what to do next.

  • People know what to do next because there are instructions but they are not sure why they are doing it or the reason they are doing it.

  • When asked how useful this experience would be in learning more about that career, many said that it would be useful to know what it’s like as it seems accurate but there is a lack of educational information about the career itself.

Second Iteration

In this iteration we made some changes to address the insights from the interviews in iteration 1.

The first issue was the usefulness of the game was limited because the information in the environment was hard to see or wasn't obvious to the user when in need of more information.

To address this issue we included a help panel that you can find in the environment with a highlighted blue border, that provides further information on the task and why it’s used in that career.

The second issue was that the instructions on how to progress in the game was limiting the users exploration because it was right in their field of view with a big arrow that directs them on what to do next.

To encourage more exploration of the world I instead made the instructions diegetic and placed about in the environment so that the user has to look at their surroundings to find what task they have to do next. I did this so the user can feel more immersed in the experience but I kept the yellow highlighted border so that the user can easily spot it.

I then performed the same research techniques as the first iteration with 5 new people however I asked them specific questions in relation to the changes I made.

Questions Asked

1. Would this experience be useful for you in learning more about that career?

2. Do you feel curious about the workplace and want to explore/learn more?

Findings

  • Some participants mentioned that there wasn’t any way for them to go back to the previous task in case they wanted to explore more or redo the task.

  • Some also mentioned that it was hard to learn about the actual order of the tasks in the day because you just jump from one task to another and there’s no progress bar or schedule they can refer to.

Third Iteration

In this iteration I decided to test the progress bar in the form of a schedule that ticks off the tasks you complete. From this you can also select on the task you have previously completed to go back however you can’t use it to go forward to an uncompleted task as we are still trying to encourage environment exploration.

I created two versions of this feature and decided to make a 360 Vr grid for this prototype as I was testing the location of where I put the schedule in reference to the user's field of view. I then conducted A/B testing between the two versions with four participants two of which have already seen the first two iterations and tested how long it took them to find the schedule and how well they understood it.

Findings

  • Users easily located the schedule box in the first version (A) and intuitively expected it to display the schedule upon clicking.

  • Some users suggested it would be easier if they could walk around the environment so they can explore rather than jump from scene to scene.

  • In the second version (B), users initially had difficulty finding the schedule until they adjusted their field of view.

  • Once found, users understood the schedule's purpose but found its location awkward, potentially cluttering the environment and lacking seamless integration.

Verdict

I ultimately decided to go with the first version (A) as it aided in the immersive experience better by not cluttering the environment, as well as the location of the schedule being much easier to find and better integrated.

New Solution Criteria

Based off the user testing feedback, I then created a new criteria for the solution before I started the final prototype.

  • The prototype must provide adequate information on the career and tasks as most users are going to be brand new to the career.

  • There has to be freedom for the user to explore at their own will so they can have a better understanding for themselves.

  • It must also aid in creating curiosity into the experience and not just rely on the user to be curious.

User Testing

First Iteration

In the first iteration I used storyboards to represent my ideas so that the participants can follow along scene by scene with some explanation of what is happening. I began by providing an explanation on what my prototype is trying to achieve and the problem space it is solving and also about VR and how the user would experience this game differently since it is immersive. Following this I then asked the participants to view the storyboard prototype and think aloud as they went through the scenes and then followed up with these questions when they were done.

Final Prototype

After completing all the testing for the concept and making the adjustments based off the feedback, I created the final prototype in Unity. Some key changes made was that to improve curiosity and experiential learning, the user can move throughout the environment and learn about the career through interaction with the environment. Also the user isn't stuck to a set routine and can explore as they please but is still informed about the typical routine by viewing the clipboard.

Introducing The Virtual Reality Career Fair

Key Takeaways

Remember the user always

Throughout the design process I found myself getting caught up in the technical details of how the user was going to transition between tasks and eventually finding out through testing that users preferred if they could just explore the environment instead. This was a valuable lesson as it is important to place your focus and energy in what is important, and transitions was important to me but not the user.

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