Batsy's Heroic Adventures
A VR experience to increase awareness about bat conservation efforts
Skills & Tools
Design Research
Literature Review
User Flow Diagramming
Wireframing
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Unity 3D
Qualtrics
Timeline
6 weeks
(Nov-Dec 2022)
Team
Amanda, Fanyi, Nimra, Soojin, Ishita
My Role
My role was primarily that of a UX Researcher. I conducted exhaustive literature reviews as part of secondary research, created a storyboard for the experience and conducted usability tests with 5 participants. I also designed and coded parts of the final prototype.
Background
As part of the course Virtual Environments in my first semester, we examined people’s social and psychological experiences of being in virtual reality. Our semester-long project was about developing a VR experience that would be an MVP towards our bigger, research-backed idea.
The Big Problem
"Bats are America's most rapidly declining and threatened warm-blooded animals. Alarming losses of free-tailed bats have been reported though their population status is inadequately monitored. Even the Congress Ave. Bridge bats appear to be in decline."
- https://www.austinbats.org/
Our Solution
We created a VR experience to educate our users about social good. We decided to create an interactive VR experience with the purpose of raising awareness and increasing empathy for one of the most misunderstood animals in our ecosystem.
UX Roadmap
Empathize
Secondary research to understand bats' contributions to our ecological balance
Examining attitudes towards bats
Ideate
Exploring storytelling avenues in VR
Storyboarding to clarify different aspects of the experience
Prototype
Designing a mid-fi prototype in Unity3d
Creating hi-fi prototype to test with users
Test
Designing a questionnaire to capture thoughts and feedback
Inviting peers to test the experience
Empathize
1.1 Understanding bats' contributions
Contributions to our ecosystem - They save farmers a billion dollars annually in avoided pesticide use by intercepting migrating pests, and reducing egg-laying on crops. They're responsible for pollination and seed dispersal, such as the blue agave.
Declining populations - Misconceptions about bats are abundant. Bats carry no more diseases than other animals; however, unfounded speculations combined with misleading research only strengthen the stigma against them.
Threats to existence - Attempting to carry out bat conservation efforts without combating stigma and fear is futile. Colonies of millions have been deliberately destroyed out of unwarranted fear.
1.2 Examining Attitudes aka Painpoints
We asked ourselves and people around us what they thought of bats.
"I find them rather scary tbh"
"They seem to be really unpredictable"
"I know some people find them cute, but I just find them scary"
"Weren't they the cause of covid? I'm sure they must spread many other diseases too"
"I remember seeing Batman and bats really creeped me out since then"
"I don't know, I've never thought of bats. But if I have to, I guess they're scary (?)"
Ideate
The pain points made it clear that a lot of the stigma surrounding bats was about how scary they are. It is difficult to empathize with a creature that one is scared of. That became our guiding principle.
Our initial idea centered on a "Day in the Life" narrative. The experience would take the user through multiple activities that bats engage in, making them aware of their importance and the perils they face. However, further brainstorming sessions made us realize that a gamified experience would be better and we spent time exploring this further.
2.1 Secondary Research to explore VR avenues
01
Proteus Effect
When participants embody the avatar of a bat or watch a 360-degree documentary about bats, they are more likely to empathize with the species. Empathizing with other animals allows us to deconstruct the anthropocentric viewpoint we have all learned growing up. This formed the backbone of our idea.
02
Bodily Ownership or IVBO
When participants embody virtual avatars radically different from their own bodies, they report strong feelings of immersion, presence, and ownership over their virtual bodies. Strong effects of bodily ownership can cause profound changes in the users’ emotions and behavior.
03
Empathy in VR
If a user has the avatar of an animal, they will attempt to think and act like that animal thus developing empathy. VR games have been used in the past to create empathy for others. Thus, there is an immense possibility for increased empathy for the avatar inhabited.
2.2 Storyboarding
We settled on a game idea where the objective would be to capture as many mosquitoes as one can while embodying a bat. The bat would capture mosquitoes placed around its path and help the humans in this way.
2.3 Deciding the Equipment
We decided to use the Meta Quest 2 because it is user-friendly, accessible, and widely available. It does not confine the user with a wire, unlike the Rift. It has accurate motion tracking and a higher refresh rate that will make the experience immersive and keep motion sickness at bay.
Prototype
We made some lo-fi prototypes to visualize the virtual environment, the flow of the game, and what the embodied agent would look like.
3.1 Lo-fi Sketches
Figure 1- The game flow and mechanics of the avatar
An important point of contention was how the user would embody the agent. Our secondary research suggested that first-person embodiment results in the highest levels of IVBO (Illusion of Virtual Body Ownership), but this would not give us the desired results in terms of empathizing with the avatar, as the user can't see it.
Another approach would be having the user follow the avatar in a third-person POV. This would result in increased empathy, but lessened IVBO.
We decided to come up with a hybrid POV (point-of-view) approach. The camera would be positioned slightly above the bat, allowing for the user to see the bat as it moves around, but not be too divorced from the game as a third-person POV.
3.2 Mid-fi Game version
With a better idea of the game and what we were trying to achieve, we went on to create a mid-fi prototype of the game. This helped us nail down the environment and how the gamification would look like.
3.3 Hi-fi Prototype
Figure 3 - The virtual environment of the game
Testing
A VR showcase was held where users could try out the different projects. We designed a questionnaire for participants to fill out after the experience. Users were asked to rate feelings of self presence, empathy, spatial presence, and behavioral engagement on a Likert scale of 1-5.
A total of 22 people took the survey.
Self-presence
3.17
Average Self-presence score
72%
Felt that “I felt that my avatar represented me”
77%
Felt that “When something happens to my avatar, I felt it was happening to me”
59%
Felt that “I felt like I was able to control my avatar as though it were my own”
Spatial Presence
4.03
Average Spatial-presence score
91%
Felt that “I felt as if I was inside the virtual world”
86%
Felt that “It felt as if I was visiting another place”
91%
Felt that “It felt like I could reach out and touch the objects in the virtual environment”
Empathy
3.84
Average Empathy score
77%
People “imagined to be in Batsy’s situation”
72%
People “felt compassion for Batsy”
59%
People felt that “felt protective towards Batsy”
Behavior Engagement
3.17
Average Behavior Engagement score
72%
People felt that “I felt that my avatar represented me”
77%
People felt that “When something happened to my avatar, I felt it was happening to me”
54%
People felt that “I felt like I was able to control my avatar as though it were my own”
A participant trying out the game
Changes in attitudes
The game boosted empathy and improved attitudes toward bats in 10 people (48%) participants: 3 became more positive than positive, 3 became more positive than neutral, and 3 became more positive than negative.
Noteable Quotes from participants
“"
I have been unsure about the utility of VR for dealing with social issues. However, this game has given me a more moderated perspective. I still think that the VR hardware itself can be made more accessible
“"
I am still a bit scared of bats but I now realize that they’re just like any other animal
Insights
The game doesn’t test whether the user has understood the controls.
Action #1: Create a help directory that remains accessible through the main menu and throughout the game
Action #2: Add a tutorial that verifies whether the user has understood the controls. This tutorial should be optional
The game can be further expanded to accommodate intended storylines and actionable advice.
Action #1: Add more levels, such as the Texas Freeze, to add to the replayability and complexity of the game
Action #2: Add resources on bat conservation efforts to contribute in whatever way possible
The game is not the most accessible to people with disabilities and people from other linguistic backgrounds
Action #1: Allow transition to voice input
Action #2: Give the option to choose other languages to play in.
Action #3: Add audio directions for users who cannot read.
The game is easy to follow, and the controls are intuitive. The color scheme enables users to distinguish targets from other objects. The storyline is also well-developed enough to incite empathy and interest
The preset path is perfect for completely diminishing VR sickness in most users. It allows for ease of access to targets
People find it easier to empathize with simpler, animated faces as opposed to realistic and detailed ones. The choice of the cute bat avatar and corresponding world-building evoke warmth and compassion for the bat
The incorporation of the first-person perspective helps people go through the daily experiences of bats and gives them a better understanding of their experiences.
Reflection
This was the first time any of us were developing a VR experience. I learned a lot about how the process of creating a VR experience is quite different from a traditional UX lifecycle. The latter centers user research and exploration to generate ideas and features, however, in the case of VR we had to rely on secondary research and build an initial MVP to conduct testing with and gather user feedback. Overall, it was good to see users reacting positively to the experience.
Given more time and resources, it would’ve been good to conduct multiple rounds of testing and use the feedback to iteratively improve the game and make it more accessible to a wider user population.
