Escape the Forest – An Educational VR Experience on Data Security
Project Overview
This project explored the affordances of VR as a learning tool through the design of an immersive educational experience on data security risks. Titled "Escape the Forest," the WebVR minigame design provides an educational experience for all learners/users of VR in understanding the risks relevant to data security as they interact with VR.
With first-person and third-person perspectives in the experience, the player would get to know about and feel the risks associated with VR regarding different data gathered from their participation in this new technology.
Context
Master's Degree Course Project for "VR, AR, XR, and Games as Learning Tools"
My Role
UX Designer, Researcher,
Project Manager
Timeline
2 months, 2021
Type
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VR Design
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Project Management
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Learning Experience Design
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Problem Analysis and Research
Background
Research and studies have shown the huge scale of how VR can capture data like no other technologies have previously.
Spending 20 minutes in a VR simulation can leave up to “2 million unique recordings of body language.”
Carter, M., & Egliston, B. (2020). Ethical implications of emerging mixed reality technologies.
Despite the potential risks of data capturing in VR, many users are not aware of the harms involved due to a lack of educational information in this regard.
Define the Key Problem
During the research, we define the problem as:
Many users don't know what and how their data are captured during the VR experiences, which can cause big risks for users who are unaware of the danger.
Set Design Goal
Provide education on data security issues and help users learn about risks in VR by raising awareness on:
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The types of data that can be extracted from VR experiences
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Risks associated with the data footsteps they leave behind and inferential information that can be extracted from the VR experiences
Ideate: Storytelling in Design for Effective Learning Experience
After we identified the problem through research and narrowed down the possible solutions, our group decided to develop a WebVR experience in which the players could learn about data, privacy, and security issues regarding the use of VR. Our WebVR experience, titled “Escape the Forest,” makes an educational impact on users regarding the vast amounts of data that can be collected from their activities in VR.
Upon designing the experience, we had many questions as to what kind of story we wanted to tell. We not only needed the story to be intriguing but also for it to require a diverse set of movements and actions on behalf of the main character.
As our VR project is in actuality, a simulation that conveys a message rather than a real game, we needed to disguise it in a way that would portray itself to players as an intriguing game, but also have its design align with our needs so that it would adequately serve our purpose.
It was important for us to identify the users’ needs as players and align them with our needs as designers. When playing a game, the users’ needs are entertaining content. Our needs were to design a game that would effectively convey our message.
Therefore, we decided to craft the story around the main character having to escape from a forest. While brainstorming, we found a common ground where we were all intrigued by games and storylines that had to do with dire situations. We began talking about various television series about survival in the wild. We noticed that all of the research group members were excited about this topic which is the reason for us choosing a story around escaping from a forest.
Then, we began to ideate each scene. As we brainstormed for each of the scenes, we kept in mind what kind of data we wanted to extract from the player. We had already drafted a list of the various types of data we wanted to extract, so we took that list into consideration.
Design Notes
Map User Journey
Eventually, we divided all the steps into 3 unique parts that compose the entire minigame.
With the affordance of VR, we created a dynamic user journey with 3 parts in the experience from first-person and third-person perspectives. This design creates a strong impact on the users in understanding how their data are captured without notice and provides them with a thought-provoking angle of seeing their activities in virtual reality.
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The player is in the first-person perspective and completes a series of tasks to escape the forest.
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The system warns the player about whether he/she understands what really happened and shows the run-through of the player’s experience from the first step in a third-person perspective.
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The last scene presents a final reminder on the data security risks in VR.
Design Rationale
Situated Learning
Sense of Presence
Multisensory Approach
With the division of the experience into three parts, we provided a scaffolded learning experience. Our design is based on German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht’s theory of alienation which is described as, “at each important moment [of the scene], in addition to what the actor is doing, he must give to understand something that he is not doing” (qtd in. Féral & Bermingham, 1987, p. 461 - 462). Brecht’s alienation theory highlights the concept of presenting the familiar in unfamiliar ways to allow the audience to think more profoundly about the story rather than the action of the story itself (Caishu, 2015).
At first, we had the player experience the first-person perspective of how they are behaving in a VR environment so that they can interact within the environment in their most natural and uninhibited state. By priming the player to play the first section of the game with no background explanation of the actual end goal of this game, which is to learn about data security and privacy, we were able to capture the player’s raw actions.
As Gorisse and Geoffrey indicate, first-person perspectives can provide more accurate interactions in user performance. First-person perspectives make users more inclusive of virtual bodies, especially when it comes to self-positioning and ownership (Gorisse, Geoffrey, et al., 2017). So we present the first part of the game from the first-person perspective, allowing players to make more interactive moves in the game, rather than stand as bystanders of the game. This gives “Escape the Forest” the opportunity to collect more user data, such as facial expressions and eye movements.
The second part of the game is a learning excursion rather than a game. The player gets to see in a third-person perspective, the specific actions that contribute to each type of data footprint he/she leaves behind. Finally, the third part of the game is a cautionary tale that aims to give closure to the experience and incite an urge for the player to educate him/herself more on the issue of data privacy and security in VR use.
References:
Feral, J., & Bermingham, R. (1987). Alienation theory in multi-media performance. Theatre Journal, 39(4), 461-472.
Caishu, Z. (2015). Ethical Literary Criticism on Bretcht’s Theory of “Alienation Effect”. Foreign Literature Studies, (3).
Gorisse, Geoffrey, et al. "First- and Third-Person Perspectives in Immersive Virtual Environments: Presence and Performance Analysis of Embodied Users." Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2017. Gale Academic OneFile, Accessed 22 Apr. 2021.
Code to Design the User Interactions in 3D
What's impactful about the VR experience is that it provides users with an immersive experience constructed by a spatial environment with vivid visuals and sound and more possibilities for interactions for users to define what is real or not. It also means that more data points can be captured without notice.
Therefore, we designed a VR experience to imitate the effects that a common VR experience would have on the users. To do so, we created a rich and engaging environment - a forest - with various scenarios, objects like animals and characters, sound, dialogues, movements, and interactive options.
Final Design Snapshot
Impact
This VR experience presents a unique and creative learning experience for VR players to understand the underlying risks when using VR. The multi-sensory interaction including the use of visuals, sound, and other dynamic interactions in this experience would provide an impactful lesson on data security for the players.
As the game concludes with a scene of voice reminders on data security in VR, I'd like to provide you with the script of the voiceover that captures the main theme for this project:
"You may have been able to successfully escape the Forest of Death, but in doing so, you have left footsteps of your data throughout the experience.
During the first five minutes of your participation in the game, the system was able to collect enough points of data to identify you at an accuracy rate of 95%. Even if VR systems have privacy policies to keep users' information confidential, companies still have the ability to distribute de-identified data. With machine learning algorithms, de-identified data can easily be re-identified and associated with users. Therefore, it is of crucial importance for users to be mindful of the type of data that can be collected.
The list of data captured includes but is not limited to posture, height, gaze, gesture, motion, strength, eye movement, body reaction to threats, running speed and pattern, and voice. Through this experience, we hope we can remind you of the reality of participating in VR experiences. Can you really escape from the “death forest” of data? Maybe or maybe not, but the point is that you need to be more mindful of the type of data you give away in the virtual world in order to protect yourself.
Next time you participate in a VR or XR experience, check any settings that might affect what data can be captured. Make sure to understand that the data you leave behind in the system can be used by third parties and can possibly be used against your own will. Understand what risk you are exposing yourself to before jumping into this world. Play it safe."
The ending reminder in the game illustrates the key goal of our project, which is to educate VR users regarding the risks associated with data security. With the rapid development and popularity of VR among the public, it is critical to make the audience aware of not only the opportunities but also the risks to make sure the VR ecosystem is sustainable in the long run.
Conclusion & Takeaways
With our design of “Escape the Forest,” we hope to fill in the gap of a lack of understanding of the data security risks in VR for the players in the virtual world. Moreover, we encourage more VR developers to take ethical concerns into consideration for their players to build a safe place for people to learn and play. More research and design on this topic are needed for a better understanding of data protection in virtual reality.
Our classmates critiqued our project as "fun, engaging, and thought-provoking." The professor of the course also complimented our project as “one of the most complete and unique CoSpaces projects he has ever seen at Teachers College, Columbia University.”
We hope the design of the “Escape the Forest” VR experience provides you with new insights into data security issues in the virtual world. Play it safe! : )