Location-based Virtual Reality experiences for children: Japan-UK knowledge exchange network
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal College of Art
Department Name: School of Communications
Abstract
This UK-Japan knowledge exchange and research network consists of academics in the fields of social sciences, design and computing working alongside commercial partners to focus on location-based VR experiences for children. It responds to a demand for location-based VR experiences for children in a range of sectors that include entertainment, education and health. It builds on emerging research findings that suggest that context specific experiences are evolving as the next generation of immersive experiences.
The funding will be used to link key stakeholders working in this area, join up knowledge, begin exploratory research, and establish the best methodologies for studying children's use of VR. In doing so the network will establish sustainable pathways that can make real impact in the field. This will be done by undertaking a series of knowledge exchange activities to identify what is known and establish the most essential areas of research and development that need to be taken forward in order to produce engaging and safe location-based VR experiences for children.
The funding will be used to link key stakeholders working in this area, join up knowledge, begin exploratory research, and establish the best methodologies for studying children's use of VR. In doing so the network will establish sustainable pathways that can make real impact in the field. This will be done by undertaking a series of knowledge exchange activities to identify what is known and establish the most essential areas of research and development that need to be taken forward in order to produce engaging and safe location-based VR experiences for children.
Planned Impact
This project will generate the world's first dedicated cross-sector network for advancing and sharing knowledge to support the development of location-based virtual reality (VR) experiences designed specifically for children.
The network will be established by leading researchers, developers and public organisations with established interests in building shared capabilities for developing children's VR, including designing future experiences, establishing robust design standards and developing the innovative methodologies that are needed to lead children-centred and critically informed innovation in this area.
The network will directly benefit these groups by bringing together disparate and currently unconnected world-leading cross-sector experts based in the UK and Japan to share knowledge and ideas, establish common research agendas and identify opportunities for informing research and innovation directions for children's VR in the UK and Japan.
The primary beneficiaries of the network include:
- Commercial children's VR developers in the UK and Japan, who will gain new insights, methods and methodologies, and cross-sector partnerships that will inform or enable research and innovation directed at the creation of new VR products designed specifically for children. These organisations, which include a broad range of companies small and large in the UK and Japan, will also gain additional benefits from contributing to the development of design standards aimed at supporting informed innovation in this area. Alongside producing its own documentation geared towards informing industry practice, the network will also catalyse the development of new areas of research that will provide further insights into children's engagement with and use of VR.
- Public organisations in the UK and Japan, who will gain detailed new understanding of children's uses of VR in two different cultures alongside design approaches and concerns for the application/adoption of VR in public and private contexts, including health, education and culture. These organisations will further benefit from contributing to the development of design standards for children's VR, ensuring the standards address and encompass public concerns and benefits.
- Individuals in the UK and Japan, including children and their parents, carers, and professionals who interact with children, who will gain new insights into the development of VR experiences designed specifically for children. These individuals, including those who participate directly in the research, will also gain additional benefits from research brought together and catalysed by the network into the health and safety of children's interactions with VR technologies, including the effects of VR on children's wellbeing and development.
Alongside appealing to these beneficiaries, the network will also connect with national and international media, technology and policy organisations, to ensure the aims and outcomes of the network are disseminated as widely as possible and to provide opportunities for enhancing participation in the network during and beyond its funded period.
The network will be established by leading researchers, developers and public organisations with established interests in building shared capabilities for developing children's VR, including designing future experiences, establishing robust design standards and developing the innovative methodologies that are needed to lead children-centred and critically informed innovation in this area.
The network will directly benefit these groups by bringing together disparate and currently unconnected world-leading cross-sector experts based in the UK and Japan to share knowledge and ideas, establish common research agendas and identify opportunities for informing research and innovation directions for children's VR in the UK and Japan.
The primary beneficiaries of the network include:
- Commercial children's VR developers in the UK and Japan, who will gain new insights, methods and methodologies, and cross-sector partnerships that will inform or enable research and innovation directed at the creation of new VR products designed specifically for children. These organisations, which include a broad range of companies small and large in the UK and Japan, will also gain additional benefits from contributing to the development of design standards aimed at supporting informed innovation in this area. Alongside producing its own documentation geared towards informing industry practice, the network will also catalyse the development of new areas of research that will provide further insights into children's engagement with and use of VR.
- Public organisations in the UK and Japan, who will gain detailed new understanding of children's uses of VR in two different cultures alongside design approaches and concerns for the application/adoption of VR in public and private contexts, including health, education and culture. These organisations will further benefit from contributing to the development of design standards for children's VR, ensuring the standards address and encompass public concerns and benefits.
- Individuals in the UK and Japan, including children and their parents, carers, and professionals who interact with children, who will gain new insights into the development of VR experiences designed specifically for children. These individuals, including those who participate directly in the research, will also gain additional benefits from research brought together and catalysed by the network into the health and safety of children's interactions with VR technologies, including the effects of VR on children's wellbeing and development.
Alongside appealing to these beneficiaries, the network will also connect with national and international media, technology and policy organisations, to ensure the aims and outcomes of the network are disseminated as widely as possible and to provide opportunities for enhancing participation in the network during and beyond its funded period.
Publications
Yamada-Rice, D.
(2021)
Children's Interactive Storytelling in Virtual Reality
in Multimodality and Society
Dare, E.
(2020)
Virtual Realities: Towards an anti-theatre of VR
in On Diffraction
Nash, R.
(2021)
Collaborative zine: co-producing knowledge about location-based virtual reality experiences
in Qualitative Research Journal
Stearman, N.
(2019)
Designing a Good On-boarding VR Experience
Duszenko, I.
(2019)
'The Village' - toy design for VR
Rodrigues, D.
(2019)
The Importance of Detail
Yamada-Rice, D.
(2019)
Modes, Materials and Performance in the Design of Location-based VR
Yamada-Rice, D.
(2019)
Immersive Experiences
Dare, E.
(2019)
VR in Japanese Entertainment
| Title | Collaborative Zine |
| Description | Collaborative Zine based on using coding to find new connections between data |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The process used in creating the zine was the basis for a peer-reviewed article 'Nash, R., Yamada-Rice, D., Dare, E., Love, S., Main, A., Potter, D., Rodrigues, D. (2021) Using a collaborative zine to co-produce knowledge about location-based virtual reality experiences. Qualitative Research Journal, Vol.21 (2).' |
| Title | The Village: Location-based VR experience for children |
| Description | The Village was a collaboration between the network, another RCUK funded project called 'Playing the Archive' and MA Information Experience Design students at the Royal College of Art. One of this funding objectives was to create a prototype of a location-based VR experience for children based on some of the project's findings and to provide the opportunity for children to interact with it in a museum. We were asked to collaborate with the Playing the Archive project who were seeking to disseminate some of their findings at a Play Festival at the V&A Museum of Childhood. To do so, we used the topic of turning a traditional theme of play (dolls house play) into a location-based VR experience for children attending the Play Festival. We used the Story-worlding methodology created during the network to include children in an inner city primary school into the design of the VR experience. The experience also paid particular attention to physical materials (not only virtual materials) and details which were two of the project's findings. Details of the development of the prototype can be found here: https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/2019/09/18/the-village-toy-design-for-vr/ Below is the URL listing the dissemination of the prototype at the V&A Museum of Childhood event. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The Impact was the opportunity to connect our work on VR for children, a new and emerging form of play with that of a large- scale project that looks at the history of play (Playing the Archive). Also to collaborate with the V&A in the dissemination of the event. Further, we invite industry members from the BBC, Storycentral and Kids Know Best to visit the exhibition and explore it as an example of what best practice for VR content for younger children could be. |
| URL | https://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/events/festival-of-play/ |
| Description | The project does not end until end of May 2020 so not all the data has been analysed, however the data connected to Phase One: Current State of Play of Virtual Reality in Industry were analysed using Thematic Analysis with the following themes emerging: 1. The Virtual Unreal- the desire of audiences to engage with virtual content that depicts imagined and unreal narratives. 2. Illusion and Magic- the development of VR technologies to create illusions and magic to make the unreal seem realistic. 3. Materials & Details- the role of physical materials and attention to detail to bring audiences into virtual spaces, to allow them to feel connected to, as well as secure in virtual experiences. 4. Emotions & Social- the importance of VR as a social and emotional experience. From now we will analyse data connected to: Phase Two: Current state of play in VR Development in Japanese Academia Phase Three: Development of methodology for including children into the design of location-based VR experience Phase Four: Development of a location-based VR experience for children 2021 update This was undertaken and reported in the final project report which can be downloaded here: https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/final-project-report/ |
| Exploitation Route | The final project report was shared with a number of industry and academic partners in the UK and Japan. The PI has received a number of requests for consultancy to immersive VR experiences, including an industry report and from a range of projects that have been funded by Story Futures. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Healthcare,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/ |
| Description | 2020 The project is still active so it is too early to provide details however, we have begun collaborations with Industry partners (Hashilus and Pokemon Company in Japan) to see how the findings can be used to support children in disaster preparedness through VR play. Likewise, a collaboration is emerging with Great Ormond Street Hospital to see how the findings can be used in the development of new types of play for hospitalised children. We will provide further details of these in the next reporting period. 2021 update We completed the project and the final project report which we distributed to relevant non-academic partners. The report can be found here: https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/final-project-report/ The work has been taken up by a collaboration between the Royal Holloway and the National Portrait Museum for the development of new immersive experiences. Over the last year we began a new collaboration with Richard Nash, as artist and academic who makes artist's books. Through this collaboration we sought to establish whether the production of a zine could bring about new forms of secondary data analysis. COVID-19 has negatively impacted on the project in that all location-based VR experiences in Japan and the UK closed. This had a huge impact on our Japanese partners. We wrote a follow-on research bid for the Eureka Globalstars Japan bid but in the final hour the Japanese partners had to withdraw dues to the financial impact of COVID-19 and the bid was not submitted. |
| Sector | Healthcare,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | Postgraduate Teaching: Unit on Extra Sensory Perception |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Global Challenges Research Fund Networking Grants |
| Amount | £25,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
| Department | Global Challenges Research Fund |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2020 |
| End | 12/2020 |
| Title | Storyworlds |
| Description | This method uses physical materials to model prototypes for VR development. The project showed how this was also an effective means for including children in the design of location-based VR experiences. |
| Type Of Material | Model of mechanisms or symptoms - human |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The method was used by Yamada-Rice (PI) working with MA Information Experience Design students (RCA) with primary school children in London as a means of co-designing a location-based VR experience. The ideas from the workshop were developed into a VR experience that crossed physical and virtual spaces and was disseminated at the V&A Museum of Childhood Festival, Summer 2019. |
| URL | https://ukjapanvr.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/story-worlds/ |
| Description | Collaboration with RCUK-funded project 'Playing tjhe Archive' |
| Organisation | University College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a location-based VR experience for children to disseminate some of the findings of UCL's'Playing the Archive' study (https://playingthearchive.net/) while at the same time putting into practice some of the findings of this network. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided access to primary school aged children who were part of the Playing the Archive study to be research participants in design-based workshops to include children in the design of the VR experience. This allowed the opportunity to test the 'Story-Worlding' methodology developed during the network with children. The partner also provided a financial contribution that paid for materials and time for the VR experience to be built. They also provided time to support the development of the project through documentation and critical reflection on the developed experience. |
| Impact | Output: Location-based VR experience situated at the V&A Museum of Childhood Play Festival |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Collaboration with V&A to produce a VR prototype for their Festival of Play |
| Organisation | Victoria and Albert Museum |
| Department | V&A Museum of Childhood |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Produced a location-based VR experience for the V&A Museum of Childhood Festival of Play. Undertook design-based workshops with children in an inner-city primary school to include children in the design of the prototype. To do so, we used a 'Story-worlding' methodology developed by the network. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Hosted the VR prototype, documented it with a professional photographer, advertised it and provided time to support the development of the prototype through constructive feedback, as well as with the install at the Festival. |
| Impact | Output: Development of a location-based VR experience for children. Disseminated at the V&A Museum of Childhood Play Festival, 2019. The collaboration was multidisciplinary, including: Postgraduate design students Academics from design, education and science Museum Industry partners Primary School children Further details are listed under the artefacts section of this portal. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Collaborative Zine |
| Organisation | Royal College of Art |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We were approached by Richard Nash to understand how his methods of producing Artist's Books might be used as an additional research methodology for engaging the network members and bring about additional research findings by conducting secondary analysis on the data. To this end, the research team contributed to a series of workshops and a joint publication- see below. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We were approached by Richard Nash to understand how his methods of producing Artist's Books might be used as an additional research methodology for engaging the network members and bring about additional research findings by conducting secondary analysis on the data. To this end, Nash organised a series of workshops that utilised a piece of open-source coding to randomly generate new combinations of images from the data. From this he produced a physical zine that was sent as a round robin through the postal system to each of the network member to add to. The process was brought together and discussed in a peer reviewed research journal 'Qualitative Research.' |
| Impact | A Zine of additional research data. A joint publication for the Journal 'Qualitative Research' on the collaborative zine process. This was published in 2021 please see publication list. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Designing Play for Disasters |
| Organisation | The Pokemon Company |
| Country | Japan |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This is a newly formed collaboration between Yamada-Rice (PI) and the Pokemon Company, Japan to look into developing play for disaster preparedness. |
| Collaborator Contribution | They will provide the context for the research based on work taking place in post-disaster sites in Japan with the Pokemon with You branch of the Pokemon Company. |
| Impact | There are no outputs to report yet, other than work in progress for a follow-on research funding bid. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Expertise to a virtual platform for the Goethe Institut |
| Organisation | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Advising on the development of a new virtual platform for the Goethe Institut |
| Collaborator Contribution | The chance to take part in two workshops with other experts on virtual spaces also contributed to this networks further learning and ideas in relation to location-based VR experiences. Members joined the workshop from Germany and Japan bringing in new partnerships for us to explore working with in the future. |
| Impact | Preliminary scoping designs for a new virtual platform for the Goethe Institute |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Hospital play |
| Organisation | Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | Potter, J. (Co-I) has had a number of meetings with GOSH regarding regarding the development of a follow-on research bid looking at location-based VR as potential to help hospitalised children receive information about their treatment. At present the contributions of the research team were in time to attend these meetings. |
| Collaborator Contribution | At present the contributions GOSH partners was the giving of their time to developing a research funding bid on the above topic. |
| Impact | Development of research funding bid. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Dare, E., Yamada-Rice, D., Rodrigues, D., Main, A. Potter, J. Presentation to UT- Virtual students, University of Tokyo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk at Tokyo University during knowledge exchange trip to Japan about our individual research in relation to VR, as well as about the Japan-UK network activities and emerging findings. As a follow up one UT-Virtual student came to visit the RCA in London and hear more about the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Digital Kids Today Keynote |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Designing with Children: How to Involve them in Research- Keynote presentation for Digital Kids Today. Aarhaus, Denmark. Delivered Virtually |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.digitalkidstoday.com/program |
| Description | Eleanor Dare (Co- Investigator) gave a presentation on the research for the PGR seminar series 'Methods of Intent'. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This was a presentation by Dare, E. (Co-I) for the 'Methods of Intent' seminar series is a monthly event provided for doctoral students in the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art. Description:VR: immersive ideologies: Researching and writing about virtual technologies inside and outside the headset. Date: Tuesday, 15 October 2019·4:30 - 6:30pm, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Industry conference presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Yamada-Rice, D. (PI) was part of a panel at the Children's Media Conference entitled Media Medicine. Her involvement was to describe how location-based VR can be used to disseminate medical information or in medical contexts. The ideas shared were from two funded projects of which this was one one of them. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.thechildrensmediaconference.com/sessions/media-medicine/ |
| Description | Invited Keynote presentation at International Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Yamada-Rice, D. (PI) gave an invited keynote presentation for the Clash of Realities conference in Cologne. The conference attracts a large international audience of academics and digital media industry representations. The keynote was entitled 'Children and Virtual Reality'. Requests were received from industry representatives for further information and possible collaboration, e.g. Playmobil. It has also led to another Keynote invitation to take place in Istanbul Summer 2020. Further, the organisers of the conference have requested that a write up from the project be submitted to a book they are due to publish later this year. The chapter will be published in German allowing the details to reach a different audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://clashofrealities.com/theme/speaker/dylan-yamada-rice/ |
| Description | Invited presentation for NHS Trust |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Yamada-Rice, D. (PI) gave an invited presentation on VR in children's hospitals at the 'Caring Together Summit'. This was a conference for medical and other professional staff at the Sheffield Children's Hospital NHS Trust. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Love, S. (Co-I) Research presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This refers to a talk given by Steve Love (Co-I) at GSA. The talk was entitled "Research in the School of Simulation and Visualisation at The Glasgow school of Art" It was attended by about 20 researchers, including academic staff and PHD students from design Informatics at Edinburgh University. Presented on 28.3.19. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Presentation for 'Digital Devices Before 5' Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited panel presentation for 'Digital Devices Before 5' Workshop for Bradford City Council organised by University of Leeds, Invited Talk (10/05/21). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Presentation on the research for MA Information Experience Design students at Royal College of Art |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The presentation was entitled' The Psychology and Magic of VR' which was co-presented with Prof. Mark Mon Williams from the University of Leeds. He presented his work in the area of VR and psychology to show why Wave 3 of VR has become the most successful to date. Yamada-Rice (PI) then presented on the network research and emerging findings that Wave 3 VR supports a desire for virtual more-than-human experiences which can me theorised as an extension to histories of magic and spiritualism. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |