The VRARA Training Committee are conducting an initial industry survey to capture the industrial landscape for one of the major use cases for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality – namely training and development of employees. The survey is still open for respondents, so if you haven’t taken the survey yet then please do so by following this link. It’ll only take 5-10 minutes of your time and provide valuable insight into how VR, AR and MR is becoming an integral part of industry-based training.
A number of interesting trends are emerging from the survey responses received to date. In this article we’ll focus on two of the survey questions that demonstrate these early trends within the respondent’s answers.
What sorts of activity do you think will most benefit from VR/AR/MR training? (Check all that apply)
Clearly the early survey respondents feel that manual skills and mechanical/industrial operations will especially benefit from VR/AR/MR based training, with the realistic simulation capability of VR and the interactive real-time guidance provided by AR/MR being particularly relevant. However, although process-driven activities scored particularly highly on this question, creative activities such as art and precision crafts also feature strongly, indicating that VR/AR/MR based training does have a role in activities that are not necessarily driven by process and compliance.
What are weaknesses of VR/AR/MR for training? (Check all that apply)
Understanding where the perceived weaknesses or deficiencies lie in current forms of VR/AR/MR training is key to addressing those issues in future versions of the training technologies. Clearly the early survey respondents feel that cost is still the major barrier to introducing or increasing the use of VR/AR/MR within training programs. Reduction in headset costs and innovative business models around content access should help to address this. Availability of the technology has also been highlighted as an obvious weakness, suggesting that hardware providers should consider future manufacturing and distribution processes and software providers should consider subscription and distribution models beyond the “app store” format. Resistance to chance is also highlighted as an issue, suggesting that the efforts of the VRARA Training Committee in evangelizing and promoting VR/AR/MR training are still well-placed!
The survey will remain open for a few weeks so, if you haven’t had the opportunity to capture your thoughts and opinions on VR/AR/MR training then please follow this link. A fuller article or whitepaper on the complete set of survey results is planned, so keep a lookout for that in the near future!
Email info@thevrara.com with any questions.
