Near and Dear: Designing Relatable VR Agents for Training Games

Abstract

Agents are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in people’s lives. There is potential for agents to aid scalability of digital learning and training. Research has noted the reduction in personal interactions as such applications reach a broader population. There is a gap in literature with regards to virtual agents as relatable learning companions. This paper presents the findings from three ideation workshops with different expert groups centered around designing playful interactions with a digital agent in Virtual Reality (VR), in the context of cybersecurity training. The workshop discussions were subjected to thematic analysis to extract design insights. The design insights fall into three broad categories: thematic (e.g., different metaphors to translate cybersecurity concepts), stylistic (e.g., less realistic art), and mechanical (e.g., VR gestures). This work contributes to HCI by producing a set of design insights to inform design of agent based VR learning environments.