How does virtual reality change your client presentation experience?

Zoom fatigue is real: we all know first-hand how soul-crushing and inefficient it can be. VR is a game changer for driving collaboration: the illusion of a shared physical space feels real - as if you were standing beside your colleagues. Teams better connect and communicate because instead of a flat screen, you see someone in 3D just like in real life - and avatars are fun! Sound in VR is “directional,” so if Jess is standing on your left, you hear them with your left ear - just like you would in a regular room. Finally, interactive games data and visualization tools allow the team to play - driving creativity. I’ve often had meetings in VR and later forgotten if they were IRL or in VR. The meetings are virtual but the emotions are real.

The main advantage for using VR for clients is increasing their engagement. VR environments are created purposefully for their users to interact with the concept. Based on my experience of providing relevant VR environments for business owners, this high engagement rewards businesses with high conversion rates and sales. For instance, I had the opportunity to be a part of a team for designing a VR workshop for a brand. Their concept was to create an environment that shows the customers how their products are made. This experience is now only possible by incorporating VR environments in business representations.

Ditch the static slides! VR lets you walk clients through your ideas. Imagine exploring a future building you designed, or testing a product prototype in their hands. It's presentations that pop, not doze.!!

I've been in the XR industry for ten years, and every time I put a headset on a client, the effect is immediate—they love it. As someone who sells VR entertainment in immersive worlds, bringing clients into environments we've already created has been an effective method. However, creating VR content can be expensive, so crafting an experience solely to impress a prospect can be risky. It's crucial to agree on the principle beforehand. Nonetheless, VR is a powerful tool, an excellent icebreaker, and its potential uses are endless.

Wayland's Smithy is an atmospheric historic site about a mile's walk along the Ridgeway from the Uffington White Horse. A Neolithic chambered long barrow, it was once believed to have been the home of Wayland, the Saxon god of metal working. Human remains found on the site indicate that 14 people were interred in an earlier burial structure between 3590 and 3550 BC. Between 3460 and 3400 BC a second far larger barrow was constructed on top. It is the ruins of this that can be explored by visitors to the site today.

This enhances our clients to step inside designs and explore them from various angles, VR enhances understanding and facilitates deeper discussions. This not only simplifies conveying intricate details but also enables breaking down complex structures into digestible levels, ensuring clients grasp every aspect of the project effortlessly.

As human being, we are 3D animals. Whilst we do understand 2D, it does require an effort for our brains to bring 2D models to life. With VR, models are not flat anymore but have volumes, perspective, texture, etc ... Making it so much easier to visualize everything, blow up the asset (wether it is a turbine or the plans of an appartment), and navigate through it to understand it from the inside-out. How easy will it be to fix this part of the turbine with my wrench, how much better does the view from the top floor look compared to the 3rd floor, at sunset on a summer day ? No more guesswork thanks to visuzalisation in VR.

With VR, complex concepts and spatial relationships are easier to grasp because clients can see them in three dimensions. This is particularly beneficial for industries like architecture, engineering, and product design where visualizing the final product is crucial. Instead of looking at flat images or models, clients can virtually step inside a design, examine it from every angle, and make informed decisions. This level of visualization can significantly shorten the decision-making process and lead to higher satisfaction.

Enhanced visualization leads to quicker issue spotting and better risk management. While shortening decision making time is a nice bonus, the true value of visualization lies in facilitating a more thorough, accurate, and mindful assessment of complex problems, needs, initiatives, or concepts.

La realidad virtual simplifica la comprensión de conceptos complejos y relaciones espaciales al presentarlos en 3D. Beneficia a sectores como arquitectura, ingeniería y diseño, donde la visualización es crucial. Los clientes pueden explorar diseños desde todos los ángulos, agilizando la toma de decisiones y generando mayor satisfacción.

VR is transforming professional collaboration, like allowing global teams to meet in Horizon Workrooms. This platform surpasses traditional video calls by enabling interactive, real-time work on digital whiteboards with personas and likeness expressed as avatars. Additionally, VR is revolutionizing executive coaching by facilitating anonymous group therapy, ensuring privacy for high-profile individuals seeking mental health support.

Virtual reality is the perfect way to have embodied presence, and foster a true collaborative experience that can only be done in a virtual environment. Assuming each party understands the software and has stable internet it can actually be better to be apart so each individual has enough space to move freely and adjust to accommodate the space of others. Only when these other factors do not impede the interaction then the final group interaction is a truly memorable and remarkable way that design can happen simultaneously for all people rather than bouncing ideas back and forth, saving time, effort and achieving faster outcomes.

With deeper engagement comes better collaboration. Avatars have come a very long way : they are become more realistic, have very natural movement, convey facial expressions (headset dependent, need to support Eye and Face tracking), all of the above makes the interactions much more natural. Add to that spatial audio, that will mimic the way your attention is caught depending upon where your interlocutor sits/stands in the room. Platforms are also being more flexible for hosts, offering a bunch of controls to help them manage the audience. And of course with AI, things like live translation allow for better interaction between persons from different cultural backgrounds.

La realidad virtual en el diseño de experiencia ofrece inmersión profunda, permitiendo a los clientes explorar productos o proyectos tridimensionales. Mejora la retroalimentación y decisiones informadas, optimizando el proceso de diseño y aumentando la satisfacción del cliente.

A traditional presentation brings everyone together, no matter your location but VR presentations can help us to connect and exchange ideas in a deeper level. With the creation of avatars the presentation becomes more personal and dynamic.

Bespoke realities mean diverging realities. Diverging realities are a bit like everyone being on LSD :) Nobody can agree which way is up or down, UX becomes a consistency nightmare, and live-triaging technical issues when you can't see the same reality as someone else is, actually, very much like talking someone down from a bad trip: it's just bad all around. Maybe AI will help with this years from now. For now, stick to your first principals.

The beautiful aspect of VR is that can be personalized for each individual. This creates a sense of importance and respect for the person.

Immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) create highly engaging and interactive experiences that evoke strong emotional responses from users. In retail, AR personalizes the shopping experience, making it more enjoyable and increasing customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. VR transports users to new environments, eliciting emotions from awe to empathy, enhancing storytelling, and making brand experiences more memorable and impactful.

No other tool has the power to change your mental and emotional state as powerfully as immersive media, in particular when your actions have real impact to your immediate environment. While 2d media fades from memory as fast as we watch it, emotional immersive environments are often recalled as if someone went on a holiday to a foreign country.

The emotional impact of VR presentations cannot be overstated. By creating experiences that clients can see and interact with, you tap into their emotions and create a memorable impression. Whether it's the awe of walking through a beautifully rendered building or the excitement of seeing a new product in action, VR evokes feelings that drive decision-making and brand loyalty. This emotional connection is a powerful tool for persuasion and sets you apart from competitors still relying on conventional methods. It’s about creating an unforgettable experience that sticks with clients.

First thing clients will see is the environment you are taking them in. Make it inspiring, aligned with your business goals. Give them a unique experience that will trigger their emotions. With VR, you can deliver presentations on gigantic cinematic screens, where your audience is transported in your presentation. Mix it with 3D objects that will magically pop-out of your slides, bringing the whole story to life and making then touch/feel/see something special.

A power of VR presentation can transport any person to any emotional state. That is why the creation of a good emotional experience can create a sense of belonging and the client is more likely to trust the product and/or the brand.

You definitely need an organic reason to use VR for your business or product. It needs to align with, or create entirely new measurable OKR's. Otherwise it's a novel fun marketing trick, adoption will sink, evangelization will become a burden, and it simply won't be used. So, start from "what will this product do for my existing KPI's, right now?" Otherwise you are better off just making fun videos. More people will watch and enjoy them :)

If you find a particular case where VR is good for presenting your product, then most probably the use of virtual reality puts you ahead of many of your competitors that will use traditional means. Not only your clients will find your presentation more engaging, but they will also see you as an innovator who uses cutting-edge technologies. And since VR is here to stay, the presentations that you are doing today are most likely the ones that you are doing in the next few years. But remember: this is true only if VR truly fits your presentation needs. If you just use VR when it is not needed, you will just look like someone using a gimmick.

The desire to future proof is understandable, but the reality is that no one has a crystal ball. VR should be selected as a mechanism only when it is impactful to the subject matter and likely to significantly enhance some aspect of a project.

Adopting VR for client presentations positions you as a trailblazer. It shows you’re investing in cutting-edge tech to boost client experience and proves your dedication to innovation. As VR tech evolves, you’ll be ahead of the curve, ready to harness new features that make your presentations even more compelling. Embracing VR isn’t just about staying current; it’s about future-proofing your business, ensuring you’re always leading the charge and seizing tomorrow’s opportunities. Stay sharp, stay innovative, and keep your clients wowed.

It’s easy to underestimate how much of human communication is driven by body language. This is where VR shines above classic input devices.

You have to remember that VR still makes a lot of people feel ill, even with higher refresh on the newer headsets. This will be especially true for clients that have no experience with VR. By designing tiered demos that reduce motion, or are limited in scope (time length) can reduce VR nausea

As much as we all are truly in love with the immersive qualities of these spaces, please think first principals: what is the user going to do within their first 30 seconds? It's very likely to be boring stuff like checking their microphone and figuring out how to unmute themselves. I've seen this part get short shrift more often than not, and it compromises the rest of the experience.

New and exciting VR solutions are popping up all the time. And gen ai solutions are poised to drive it even more quickly. From exercise and meditation to professional collaboration and individual productivity, now is the time to explore VR applications with an eye toward mitigating potential risks, and creating an equitable framework that benefits everyone.

En architecture la VR permet de démontrer que quelque soit la configuration architecturale, quelque soit le style souhaité, quelque soit le budget du client on est en mesure d'offrir un solution sur-mesure et ce avec une grande précision. La personnalisation au travers de la VR rend tout ce qui est imaginable configurable et par conséquent l'impossible devient possible.