Guest Article by Benjamin Lucas and Kay Schröder
Introduction
Virtual reality (VR) has triggered a wave of new possibilities for creating and enhancing customer experiences, and is helping service designers to create the services of tomorrow. VR involves the presentation of virtual environments to users via hardware (usually a VR visor and controller devices) with purpose-driven degrees of interactivity with these environments. Developments in both hardware and computing have given rise to opportunities for service designers to use VR as a customer service interface, as a tool for prototyping and service development, and to create new software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, all of which we discuss here.
New Customer Experiences
VR technology was once prohibitively expensive, and limited in terms of functionality and performance. This has changed however, with very high quality hardware packages such as HTC Vive now retailing for around $1000 USD, including a VR visor, two VR controllers and two sensors for plotting a virtual space and tracking movements [1]. Further, the development of virtual environments has been able to rapidly progress thanks to (among other things) developments in video game entertainment. For example, the Unity platform [2] offers a very high quality development environment for VR.
Figure 1: HTC Vive Hardware
Influenced in part by the increasing accessibility of VR technology, exciting new VR customer experiences are beginning to emerge. Examples in retail include Wayfair’s “Patio Playground”, built on Facebook’s Oculus Platform [3], The Line’s new luxury retail experience [4], EBay and Myer’s virtual reality department store [5,6], Ikea’s virtual reality kitchen [7], Intel and Capgemini’s similar kitchen remodeler tool, and another similar tool from Lowe’s [4]. Other exciting developments in VR for retail include new approaches to electronic payments by Alibaba [8]. In travel, examples include travel booking with Thomas Cook [9], VR technology for in-flight entertainment by QANTAS and Samsung [10], and Virgin Atlantic using VR at travel and wedding shows to promote their “Upper Class” service experience [4]. Examples in real estate include VR Global for Real Estate [11], and similarly, Matterport [12], and Edge28 by StartVR [13]. Examples in other settings include Audi’s VR experience for car configuration [14], and the New York Times VR app, NYTVR [15].
Rapid Prototyping of Servicescapes
Ostrom et al [16] highlighted the role of virtual reality labs for protoyping and service environment simulation. However, recent technological developments mean that VR may soon take on an increased role in the labs of service designers as a new platform for rapid prototyping of both physical and virtual servicescapes. For example, Google’s Tilt Brush is already being used for prototyping video games [17] (See a preview of Tilt Brush on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TckqNdrdbgk). Such lab settings are also likely to provide environments for user-experience (UX) research [18, 19], as well as a setting for revisiting topics such as gamification in marketing [20]. VR is also playing a role in product development, with BMW making use of mixed-reality environments for vehicle development [21].
Software-as-a-Service (Saas)
Another opportunity offered by VR to service designers is in SaaS for applications in areas such as health and engineering (inspired by the prediction of Sawyer [22]). This ranges from education and training applications [23,24], to new software tools to aid researchers (see for example work by the University of New South Wales in Australia to bring VR to drug design and testing [25]).
Currently, a team of researchers led by the Business Intelligence and Smart Services institute (BISS) in the Netherlands is working on a project (working title: NI1) aimed at putting VR technology in the hands of bioinformatics and computational biology researchers working with complex network data. Complex networks have become a prominent feature of these disciplines, as well as others, such as computer science, social science and information technology [26,27,28]. Such research is greatly enhanced by detailed high-resolution visualization, the complexity of which now vastly exceeds the capacity of any 2D monitor hardware to provide sufficient perspective and navigation
Figure 2: NI1 Prototype Development at BISS
The NI1 system was developed with the illustrative example of complex social network data extracted from Facebook, with the idea that this would serve as a more familiar test case for a wider audience (before testing and deployment in health). Functionality includes high-resolution, zero-latency visualization and ‘laser’ navigation, alternative layout algorithms, manipulation of attributes and virtual ‘controller-mounted’ node information displays, complete with node meta-information (Facebook metrics) and images (Facebook profile pictures). Future developments will involve the integration of general and domain-specific network analysis methods, allowing researchers to work completely immersed in real-time VR.
What’s Next?
With Goldman Sachs recently reporting on the potential of VR to become “the next big computing platform” [29], it seems likely that we will see the evolution of many new VR-based service and retail experiences, direct applications in service design and the development of new SaaS platforms. The challenge for service researchers now is to manage the inter-disciplinary collaboration necessary to produce service products and research around VR. Future VR research will likely increasingly depend on integration between disciplines such as computer science, human-computer interaction, UX design, services, data visualization and psychology.
Benjamin Lucas is an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, and the Business Intelligence and Smart Services institute (BISS), Netherlands.
Kay Schröder is the Director of the Data Visualization lab at the Business Intelligence and Smart Services institute (BISS), Netherlands.
Image Source: http://www.pu.nl/artikelen/nieuws/technologie-achter-htc-vive-voor-iedereen-beschikbaar/
References:
[1] HTC (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.vive.com/eu/
[2] Unity (2016). Retrieved from: https://unity3d.com
[3] Wafair (2016). Retrieved from: http://investor.wayfair.com/investor-relations/press-releases/press-releases-details/2016/Wayfair-Launches-Virtual-Reality-App-to-Customize-Outdoor-Spaces-with-Furnishings-and-Dcor/default.aspx
[4] CNET (2016). Retrieved from: https://www.cnet.com/news/will-virtual-reality-make-you-want-to-shop-more-retailers-are-betting-on-it/
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[8] Reuters (2016). Retrieved from: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-alibaba-ant-financial-vr-idUSKCN12C1N8
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[29] Goldman Sachs (2016). Retrieved from: http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/technology-driving-innovation-folder/virtual-and-augmented-reality/report.pdf
