Designing Effective Virtual Training: A Case Study in Maritime Safety

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate how to design effective virtual reality-based training (i.e., virtual training) in maritime safety and to present methods for enhancing interface fidelity by employing immersive interaction and 3D user interface (UI) design. Background: Emerging virtual reality technologies and hardware enable to provide immersive experiences to individuals. There is also a theory that the improvement of fidelity can improve the training efficiency. Such a sense of immersion can be utilized as an element for realizing effective training in the virtual space. Method: As an immersive interaction, we implemented gesture-based interaction using leap motion and Myo armband type sensors. Hand gestures captured from both sensors are used to interact with the virtual appliance in the scenario. The proposed 3D UI design is employed to visualize appropriate information for tasks in training. Results: A usability study to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method has been carried out. As a result, the usability test of satisfaction, intuitiveness of UI, ease of procedure learning, and equipment understanding showed that virtual training-based exercise was superior to existing training. These improvements were also independent of the type of input devices for virtual training. Conclusion: We have shown through experiments that the proposed interaction design results are more efficient interactions than the existing training method. The improvement of interface fidelity through intuitive and immediate feedback on the input device and the training information improve user satisfaction with the system, as well as training efficiency. Application: Design methods for an effective virtual training system can be applied to other areas by which trainees are required to do sophisticated job with their hands.