VR Training: “How can I make a change?”

Your VR training modules are on headsets. They’ve been sent out for your people to use. Excellent! You may quickly find yourself asking “How can I make a change to those modules?”.

If so, you are not alone. Often, the answer is to call your VR developer, ask them for changes, wait and then redeploy the modules. This is slow and expensive. Thankfully, there is another way. Use a web-based, drag-and-drop authoring tool to make the changes yourself. Then, allow it to deploy the changes automatically.

Using this approach provides L&D and training professionals with some key advantages:

• You don’t need a developer for every change
• You have direct control over the training content
• You can reuse the same VR scene for many training scenarios
• This future-proofs your VR investment.

The first point is self-explanatory. We all know reducing interactions with developers will save time and money. Let’s think about the other points in the context of a few examples.

Soft skills training in VR

Let’s say you’ve hired a VR company to build an office scene for soft skills training. In the scene, we’ll have a few things: a person, a chair and a desk. The module is for hiring a new employee. We want the trainee to interview the person so we can evaluate their performance. The scene is connected to a web-based authoring tool. That means, you have the ability to create any scenario you want with what already exists in the scene. You can:

• Define the flow of the conversation
• Choose responses for the interviewee
• Control the animations of the person being interviewed and more

Using the same VR scene, you could author any number of other soft skills training scenarios. For example:

• Firing an employee
• Employee onboarding
• Conflict resolution
• De-escalation
• Informing an employee of new company policies
• Influencing and persuading
• Sales training
• Negotiating skills

With an authoring tool, you can reuse the same VR scene and expand the training scenarios on your own. Without it, you need to go back to a developer not only for each new scenario, but for each change in a given scenario. Web-based authoring is a huge time (and cost) saver.

PPE training for essential workers

This is a very important topic these days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having a fast and flexible way to train essential workers is crucial. VR training for PPE donning and doffing saves equipment which is in short supply. Often a particular piece of equipment changes based upon what is available. You may start with a certain type of mask or gloves. Next month, it may be a different type. The procedures can change slightly as a result.

Such rapid changes means going to a developer, waiting and redeploying is not a viable, long-term option. Using a web-based authoring tool, you can quickly change the PPE procedures for the new pieces of equipment.

Standard operating procedures for food and beverage

Imagine your restaurant chain has a new menu item. You need to train your employees on how to make it. If you have an existing VR scene for your current SOPs, you can add a new procedure via a web authoring tool. The existing scene will already contain the normal equipment and ingredients in one of your restaurants. Your new procedure will simply use those in a new way. You can define the steps, the actions on the ingredients, the settings on the equipment and best practices for hygiene.

Recap

We’ve discussed three specific examples but there are many more! Using a web-based authoring tool provides the same benefits for any kind of VR training. Whenever possible, ask how you can make a change before you start your VR project. That way you can be in control right from the start.

If you want to find out more about web-based authoring for your VR training, please reach out!

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