Reflect myself - a VR app concept
"Reflect myself" describes a concept for attempting to approach and explore social anxiety disorders using virtual reality. The concept focuses on the case of lecture anxiety in public spaces.
Project duration: 3.5 months - 2021
Type of project: University project within one semester
Focus: XR prototyping, design software interfaces, mental health
Tools: Unity
Methods: User research, prototyping, design sketching, video concept, video edit
Team: Yasemin Yigit
About the course
Rethinking tech resources for mental health
The aim of the course is to explore virtual and extended interaction technologies (XR) as well as new forms of multisensory interaction - such as interactive textiles or tangible interfaces - for use in the context of mental or psychosomatic illnesses and their treatment. In addition to learning about the potential and limitations of these technologies, prototypes of varying complexity will be designed and realized in the course. The task is based, among other things, on the needs analysis of people with social anxiety disorders, with whom we are jointly developing assistance for greater social inclusion and participation in an interdisciplinary research project (DISA) at the FHP.
Reserach
Deep Dive into social anxiety
Before we started working on the concept, we looked at the conventional therapeutic treatment of social anxiety and the current state of knowledge about it. We learned that cognitive behavioral therapy is used, which is divided into a behavioral part, where the patient is confronted with the anxiety, and an insight-oriented part, consisting of psychoeducation and cognitive restructuring. For our concept, we used this information and focused on the confrontation part coupled with psychoeducation.
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During the development of the concept, we were able to interview people with social anxiety. These results were decisive for the further procedure. Among other things, we were able to deduce from the survey that those affected attach great importance to how they are judged by others and are very afraid of embarrassing themselves.
We therefore focused on a change of perspective in order to counteract this.
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„I want to be able to immerse myself virtually in the situation, act it out and say "stop" at will and pause as soon as my fears arise. That way, I can look at the root of my thoughts more closely and without pressure and hopefully understand them more easily.“ - anonym
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„I would like to know how I am perceived by others in anxiety situations.“ - anonym
Concept
Empathizing with social fears and learning from them
The concept is based on giving a socially anxious person a space to face their fear.
In our use case, we have given the person the name Tina.
Tina can choose between several functions, which are divided into the functions: Learning, Experiencing and Relaxing.
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Learn -The first function helps Tina to learn more about her anxiety and understand it better. She can also find out more about how anxiety arises in general and what triggers it.
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Experience -The second function helps Tina to immerse herself in anxiety situations and relive them or experience them completely anew.
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Relax - The third function helps her to relax better. She can find out what makes her relax best and how she can apply these methods more effectively in her everyday life.
Tina can choose which situation she wants to live through and always has the option to press "Stop" and pause or end the scene. The difference to real life is that she is in control of the situation and can press the stop button whenever she wants. She can then change her perspective, reflect on the fear in the situation or relax.
Tina is also given the opportunity to progress, as the scenes are divided into levels. This is to ensure that the levels are adapted to the fears of the characters so that they are not over- or underchallenged.
Prototype for changing perspectives
The change of perspective is illustrated in the prototype. We have chosen a lecture situation as an example exercise scene.
Perspective 1:
First person perspective
First, Tina is in the first-person perspective: here she sees the situation from the point of view of the person presenting. She is therefore standing in front of a group of people, just like in real life, with the exception that she can press "Stop" at any time to pause the scene.
From the first-person perspective, Tine takes on the role of the speaker.
Perspective 2:
Audience perspective​
After Tina has pressed the "Stop" button, she can switch to the audience's perspective: Here, Tina finds herself in the middle of the rows of spectators and can see how she follows the lecture as one spectator in the room. She can also interpret any interactions among the audience differently.
Tina switches to the role of the spectator in order to better understand how she appears from the outside.
Perspective 3:
Outside perspective
In addition to the audience's perspective, Tina also has the opportunity to adopt an external perspective: she takes on a more objective role and can observe both herself as the presenter and the audience.
Tine switches to the outside perspective in order to take on an objective role from the outside.
Prototyping in VR
VR Prototype Concept
Cocept video of the prototype "reflect myself" in german. The video shows the different perspectives of the concept. In the showroom, she can choose between the different stations.