Most VR experiences so far have been games and 360-degree videos, but Google is exploring the idea that VR can be a way to learn real life skills. The skill it chose to use as a test of this hypothesis is making coffee. So of course, it created a coffee making simulator in VR.

As explained by author, Ryan Whitwam, this simulation proved more effective over the other group in the study that had just a video primer on the coffee-making technique herein.

Participants were allowed to watch the video or do the VR simulation as many times as they wanted, and then the test—they had to make real espresso. According to Google, the people who used the VR simulator learned faster and better, needing less time to get confident enough to do the real thing and making fewer mistakes when they did.

As you all know, I have the Future of Farming project going right now with Oculus Launch Pad. It is my ambition to impart some knowledge about farming/gardening to users of that experience. Therefore I found this article to be quite intriguing. How fast can we all learn to crop tend using novel equipment should we be primed first by an interactive experience/tutorial. This is what I’d name ‘environment transferable learning’ or ETL. The idea that in one environment you can learn core concepts or skills that transcend the tactical elements of the environment. For example, a skill learned in VR that translates into a real world environment, maybe “Environment Transferable Skills” or ETS.

A fantastic alternate example, also comes from Google, with Google Blocks. This application allows Oculus Rift or HTC Vive users to craft 3D models with controllers, and the tutorial walks users through how to use their virtual apparatuses. This example doesn’t use ETL, but we can learn from the design of the tutorial nonetheless for ETL applications. For instance, when Blocks teaches how to use the 3D shape tool it focuses on teaching the user by showing outlines of 3D models that it wants the user to place. The correct button is colored differently relative to other touch controller buttons. This signals a constraint to the user that this is the button to use. With sensors found in the Oculus Touch controllers, one could force the constraint of pointing with the index finger or grasping. In the example of farming, if there is a button interface in both the real and virtual world (the latter modeled closely to mimic the real world) I can then show a user how to push the correct buttons on the equipment to get started.

What I want to highlight is that it’s kind of a re-engineering of having someone walk you through your first time exercising a skill (i.e. espresso-making). It’s cool that the tutorial can animate a sign pointing your hands to the correct locations etc. Maybe not super useful for complicated tasks but to kind of instruct anything that requires basic motor skills VR ETL can be very interesting.

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