Improvement of user experience using virtual reality in open-architecture product design

Abstract

User experience has a significant impact on the effective product design and improvement, especially for a personalized product to meet user's individual need. The development of personalized products requires data from user experience in the evaluation of the product function and performance. The existing methods of Internet-based interactive platforms and direct market user surveys cannot provide users full experience of product features. This research proposes a user interactive system based on virtual reality technologies to provide users a close-real experience in the development of open-architecture products. The system provides users an interface built on the virtual environment. The users can review a product design by virtually operating and evaluating the product. The system records users' operations and feedbacks for designers to improve the product. Food trucks designed using the open-architecture concept are used as applications to verify the proposed method. A user survey is conducted to examine the system effectiveness.

The Past, Present, and Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality Research: A Network and Cluster Analysis of the Literature

“…Since its appearance, VR has been used in different fields, as for gaming ( Zyda, 2005 ; Meldrum et al, 2012 ), military training ( Alexander et al, 2017 ), architectural design ( Song et al, 2017 ), education ( Englund et al, 2017 ), learning and social skills training ( Schmidt et al, 2017 ), simulations of surgical procedures ( Gallagher et al, 2005 ), assistance to the elderly or psychological treatments are other fields in which VR is bursting strongly ( Freeman et al, 2017 ; Neri et al, 2017 ). A recent and extensive review of Slater and Sanchez-Vives (2016) reported the main VR application evidences, including weakness and advantages, in several research areas, such as science, education, training, physical training, as well as social phenomena, moral behaviors, and could be used in other fields, like travel, meetings, collaboration, industry, news, and entertainment.…”

Research on the Evaluation Modeling Method of User Experience Quality under Uncertain Noise Environment

“…e specific steps are as follows: (1) Determine the evaluation gray class and establish the corresponding whitening weight function: refer to the method given in [32] and determine the four gray classes "very satisfied, satisfied, average, and unsatisfactory." e corresponding gray numbers are (1,2,3,4), in which the first category (e � 1): "very satisfied," with a score of 4 or above; the second category (e � 2 ): "satisfied," with a score of about 3 points; the third category (e � 3 ): "neutral," with a score of about 2 points; and the fourth category (e � 4): "not satisfied," with a score of 1 or below;…”

“…With the development of the quality of life, people's demand for products has risen from pure functionality to the stage of emotional satisfaction. As product quality becomes a barrier to overcome, the technology gap gradually narrows, and the user experience reflects the product's differentiation, which largely determines whether it can succeed on the market [1][2][3].…”

Overview of modern technology: VR, AR, MBAR, MR.

“…Приложения Виртуальной Реальности С момента своего появления VR использовалась в различных областях: для игр, военной подготовки, архитектурном проектировании, образовании и обучении социальным навыкам, моделировании хирургических процедур [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Недавний и обширный обзор Slater и Sanchez-Vives сообщил об основных доказательствах применения VR, включая недостатки и преимущества, показали, как достижения VR могут быть использованы в других областях, таких как путешествия, сотрудничество, промышленность, новости и развлечения [17].…”