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In collaboration with the Kent State University EHHS/School of Foundations, Leadership & Administration and Public Health, the ATR Lab conducted the first test study for the Virtual Reality Student Recreation and Wellness Center Tour. The study was conducted as a test for our tour system that is aimed at providing a wide variety of people, especially a physically or intellectually disabled individuals, the capability to explore locations they might not normally have easy access to. This way they can get comfortable with a location before visiting it, removing the element of social anxiety in a new, unexplored location. This also gives them the ability to explore locations that might not be accessible by them in the real world.

The goal was to get feedback to improve the system and measure comfort, stability, and overall enjoyment of the VR tour experience. Our subject seemed to adapt quickly to the system and was able to maneuver through the tour with ease. She found it enjoyable as it gave her the feeling of actually being at the Rec Center due to the immersion provided by our VR experience. A set of surveys was done before and after the test to gather the appropriate feedback needed, and an automatic auditing script was running in the background to gather information on the user’s route through the tour and how long they spend in each scene. Using this data we can improve on the system and generate research papers detailing the experiment and the significance of the information gained from it.