A Synaesthetic-Oriented Approach to Virtual Environments

<p dir="ltr">Synaesthetic-oriented design, inspired by the phenomenon Synaesthesia, focuses on unexpected or atypical sensory combinations. Whilst this design approach has been used to design software, there is limited research into how it can affect User Experience (UX), especially in Virtual Environments (VEs). To investigate this, the author designed, programmed, and ran four user studies in synaesthetic-oriented VEs. The first two studies had participants navigating maze VEs whilst interacting with expected and unexpected sensory combinations. Both studies had audio-visual combinations and the second study added tactile, olfactory, and gustatory elements. The third and fourth studies were based in Virtual Reality. The third study had three VEs, including two with five simultaneous sensory elements, whilst the fourth study focused on pairs of synaesthetic-oriented combinations being compared to more ‘typical’ and expected sensory combinations in 17 VEs. All studies collected data on UX using questionnaires (analysed statistically) and semi-structured interviews (analysed thematically and by sentiment). Results found that both synaesthetic-oriented combinations and novel interactions are needed together to create a synaesthetic-oriented design. Positive UX includes surprise, increased interest in the VE, playfulness, and the participant creating personalised links between the VE and sensory elements. However, there are challenges to consider in order to prevent negative UX. For example, preventing senses overwhelming or fading, participants not recognising sensory elements, and incongruous senses causing confusion. Individual differences also strongly affect UX due to personality, preferences, and prior experience amongst other factors. These results were used to create a framework and guidelines for synaesthetic-oriented design in VEs to allow future researchers to create synaesthetic-oriented VEs which are tailored towards their users as well as informing researchers of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach compared to multisensory VEs with more expected sensory combinations.</p>