On accessibility in immersive

At Curiious we have been creating virtual reality content for years, it was precisely this offering that caught my eye and drew me away from over 20 years in live events and experiential marketing to guide a team of technologists and thinkers. The satisfaction of making communication and training more efficacious, taking people on journeys to places too risky, impossible to reach, dangerous and expensive to access in real life (RIDE, an acronym that identifies the best opportunities in virtual reality), has been greater than any other work I’ve undertaken….Until now.

In pre-pandemic 2019, analysts suggested that mass adoption of VR hardware was just five years away. We had many clients creating VR labs for research, learning, play and more. There were some challenges to the wave of mass adoption, the cost of hardware rendered virtual reality unattainable to plenty of organisations and others simply didn’t have the capacity to review their approach to learning and events. As the pandemic set-in, the established labs became increasingly inaccessible and businesses rightly focussed on doing more with less, innovating within their existing systems versus onboarding new technology. 

With an undeniably gaping chasm in engagement and data between traditional websites (whether an LMS or virtual event platform) and content experienced in a VR headset, the Curiious team made it our mission to close this gap. 

We have democratised immersive experiences

From abolishing the need for investment in new hardware by making our platform accessible via computer, mobile or VR, to creating a home for content that exists in traditional formats - we’ve focussed on a platform that makes rich experiences available to anyone with an average internet connection.

Meeting people where they are, on the device they have to hand has meant that highly-interactive, 3D experiences are transforming witnesses into participants in processes from product launches, to sales training to continuing education for medical professionals. Just as in VR, we are able to teach complex systems more quickly and effectively, and now this learning can happen from anywhere. All at a significantly lower ‘cost per use’.

We are guiding our clients to offer mixed modes of engagement and carefully consider which content should be time based versus on-demand, thereby giving the user agency and creating sticky (i.e. right-brained) experiences. From highly-polished films to mobile phone content ‘from the trenches’, infographics, product spec sheets, 3D models or worlds, interactive simulations and even traditional PowerPoint slides - we group literally any content type around subject matter or learning experience (rather than by file type as we so often see) then let users physically explore and discover it in their own time. This approach retains the value of immersion and delivers unprecedented utility to our customers.

Data from our client’s use of the platform sees return logins from single users, with dwell time increasing per visit. So, rather than teasing interest with a brief immersive module, audiences are enabled to come back for more when and where they like.