Exploring the benefits of immersive end user development for virtual reality

Abstract

We present an immersive virtual reality tool, called VR GREP, to empower end users with the capacity to design and develop virtual reality environments by themselves. To investigate the potential benefits that this technology might provide to support the end user development of virtual environments we conducted a study in which 23 participants collaborated. The participants designed and implemented two virtual environments using their favourite interaction style. They reported that the immersive environment contributed to making them feel more creative and engaged in the process. They also agreed that the perspective provided by the tool was more adequate for the process, as it is closer to the one perceived by the final user. In general, the results suggest that the technology could have a great potential for supporting the authoring tasks, although to make it a viable alternative to desktop based solutions the precision and accuracy when interacting with the virtual environment will need to be improved.