Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS) delivers award-winning Virtual Reality (VR) medical simulation, enabling:

• Healthcare professionals to practise providing world-class patient care without risking lives
• Educators (hospitals & universities across the globe) to save time & money in delivering & tracking quality, flexible, and measurable training that improves patient care

As their Product Designer, I focused on the User Experience (UX), Accessibility (A11Y), and User Interface (UI) design of their Web & VR app interfaces, which guide users through e.g.:

• Login – via the web app or a standalone VR headset
• Scenario Selection – for single or multi-play experiences
• Multi-play Set-up – microphone, avatar, etc.
• Settings – before, during, and after simulations
• Notifications – about progress, time-outs, solutions to issues, etc.
• Team Pre-brief & Debrief – in a shared VR environment
• Feedback & Analytics – on the desktop screen, and inside tethered & standalone VR headsets

My achievements:

• Usability & Accessibility Research – proposing many product improvements, via Adobe XD designs & demos, Jira tasks, Confluence pages, etc.
• Product Vision – creating an overview of the entire future experience, with all its journeys & aspects, anticipating & concisely describing new events, opportunities & features, in Miro
• Information Architecture (IA) – clarifying relationships & interactions of VR sections & features, in flowcharts & diagrams
• Stakeholder Liaison – collaborating with Unity developers & commercial stakeholders to ensure desirable, feasible & future-proof designs
• UX Design – ideating; designing user flows, interactions, animated transitions, error messages and modals, etc.
• UI Design – designing new layouts & designs, and guiding Unity developers in adjusting & creating VR layouts & designs

4 Multi-Person Virtual Reality (VR) experiences and hundreds of 360 stills, to preview, upgrade, and sell holidays and holiday-related products in TUI stores.

TUI store agents steered the VR content (4 virtually-enhanced 360-degrees video-stories about 2 cruise ships and 2 airplanes, and hundreds of 360 stills) to up to 4 people (who go on holiday together), while seeing and guiding what each person was viewing. The content and store software (created by Infinite Pixel for TUI’s VR trial) enhanced the Customer Service (CS) & Customer Experience (CX), and lead to some additional sales.

I went the extra mile and – instead of just describing the agreed scenes in text – I produced well-illustrated clear storyboards for the film crew, with many extra details, including solutions for filming incidents, and alternatives to grab the viewer’s attention or enhance the immersion.

My role:

• Ideation – contributing ideas for the 4 VR experiences
• Storyboards – capturing 4 story-lines in well-illustrated clear docs that detail each scene’s purpose, story, spoken & written text, main angles, virtual overlays, special effects, transitions, and alternatives for filming incidents, or to enhance the viewer’s attention or immersion
• Training – advocating VR to get store agents’ buy-in during a one-day hands-on training day to enlighten & delight them
• Promotion – talking at several VR events in the UK and Germany

Sensory Reality (SR) experience (Virtual Reality experience, enhanced with sensory overlays), to preview (and pre-feel!) a TUI holiday.

Smells, wind, heat, and vibrations were synchronised with (the timeline of) a 360-degree video that was viewed in a Sensiks pod, to enhance the immersion, emotional impact, and memory effect. Spontaneous exclamations of viewers afterwards included: “It was fantastic!”, “I want to book a holiday now.”, “It definitely gave me more information about TUI.”, “I want to go to Jamaica now!”.

My role (single-handedly):

• Stakeholder Buy-In – achieving support for the SR trial from many stakeholders, and even enthusing many to trial it themselves
• UX Design/Prototyping – guiding a videographer in the choice, order, and angle of 360-degree videos for the video compilation that shows a day at a TUI resort (with constant testing in a VR headset), during a day in his studio; and advising Sensiks on the smells, wind and temperatures for each scene
• User Testing – inviting, observing and interviewing people during the 2-day SR trial at Unbound (an innovation event with over 5000 attendees)
• Promotion – talking about SR at several VR events in the UK and Germany

WebVR (Virtual Reality) experience that runs in browsers (on computer/mobile screens or in VR headsets, without any app) to discover and preview holidays.

My team of 5 people (Team ‘Teleporters’) created a WebVR prototype, using A-Frame, during TUI Group’s 2-day Content Hackathon, to discover and preview different TUI holidays. We won the silver medal, along with Brightcove’s Most Creative Use of Video prize. I had invited Peter O’Shaughnessy from Samsung to join my VR team, who wrote this article about the event: Prototyping a VR web app with the world’s leading tourism company

My role:

• Ideation – contributing ideas for the experience
• UX Design – advising the team on e.g. menu placement and features
• UI Design – sharing 360-designing templates/tools with the team
• Prototyping – coding some sound-functions

Suite of Augmented Reality (AR) experiences that feature TUI mascottes, to engage children pre-holiday (anticipation), at the airport (distraction), at the resort (immersion), and after the holiday (recollection and brand loyalty).

The holistic approach of this suite of AR experiences enhances the holiday experience (and brand loyalty) of children as well as their parents, and reflects TUI’s unique ability to serve customers not only pre-holiday (with their own stores, sites and apps), but also during transport (with their own airlines), during holidays (at their own resorts) and afterwards (providing excellent after care).

My role (single-handedly):

• Technology Advice – providing the project leader with many AR examples, AR best practise information, and other AR advice
• Resource Advice – recommending AR agencies to the project leader
• Workshop Facilitation – organising, leading, and documenting an ideation session with TUI stakeholders and an external agency
• Ideation/UX Design – proposing many ideas and user journeys

VR (Virtual Reality) experience that runs in browsers (on computer/mobile screens) or in VR headsets, to show TUI stakeholders innovative VR features.

Viewers can choose a TUI-related category (like Beach, Hotel, Cruise, etc.) to view 360-degree videos and stills with virtual overlays that are time-triggered (e.g. name labels that appear temporarily) or gaze-triggered (e.g. gaze on a Twitter icon to see simulated live feeds about the content).

My role (single-handedly):

• Ideation – proposing to create the experience and inventing the features
• UX Design – designing user flows, interactions, and animated transitions
• UI Design – selecting 360 content & fonts, creating assets and layouts
• Prototyping – creating the experience in Wonda VR
• VR Advocacy – supporting the experience at an internal VR event
• Liasing with Suppliers – proposing so many innovative solutions to Wonda’s CEO, that TUI got invited (with me as the contact person) to a European Consortium around Wonda VR

I was invited as a speaker at AR & VR World – Europe’s leading technology-driven conference and exhibition showcasing AR, VR and XR as the essential tool for business transformation – to promote TUI’s multi-person VR experiences that TUI’s Innovation Lab had created as sales & preview tools for TUI stores, and for which I had e.g. produced the storyboards, and had helped train the store agents in VR. I invited Alex Harvey from RiVR (Reality In Virtual Reality) to the event, who had developed the VR content, syncing software (shown bottom-right), and a demo stand at AR & VR World.

RiVR Links:

• AR & VR World Demo Reactions: LinkedIn Post – VR-Demo Video
• Filming of TUI’s 360 videos: LinkedIn Post – 360-Filming Video
• TUI’s VR training: LinkedIn Post – VR-Training Video

I discussed Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) at VR World – a conference with 1000 attendees – in a panel with Artur Fiedorowicz, Michael Kendereski, Rob Lake, and Christina Bechhold Russ, moderated by Francisco Jeronimo, with the topic:
Is the Future of Marketing Virtual or Augmented?

I presented TUI’s Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences at HANNOVR 8 – Germany’s largest meetup for VR & AR – highlighting how these experiences increase the Sales and enhance the Customer Experience (CX) and Customer Service (CS) at TUI, across different source markets.

HANNOVR Links:

• Speaker Announcement: Facebook – Speaker Announcement Video
• Event Compilation (See min 1:34, 1:29): Facebook – Event Compilation Video
• My Presentation (28 min incl. questions): YouTube – Presentation Video

I presented many Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences, tools and links in my Over The Air (OTA) talk, way back in 2016. My talk was about (how to create) innovative interactions that feel natural and human, almost like conversations with an empathetic and smart friend, who makes your experience more:

• Personal – Content is contextual, fluid, automated, etc.
• Natural – Interaction is by speech, movement, mood, biometrics, etc.
• Immersive – Merging your physical & digital worlds, with you in the centre
• Efficient – Helping you achieve things faster and better
• Entertaining – Making you want more

The talk mentioned many technologies besides AR & VR. This image shows Crayola examples (sources are on slide 44). Since then, my highly-illustrated presentation has gained hundreds of views on SlideShare. It’s called:
Innovative Experiences, enabled by emerging technologies

I presented many Augmented Reality (AR) experiences, tools, events, news sources, and their links, in my Barcamp talk, way back in 2009. This image shows AR example acrossair. My Market / Benchmark Research showed the then-current state of AR. Since then, my highly-illustrated presentation has gained almost 17K views on SlideShare. It’s called:
Augmented Reality (AR) – The Future of Mobile Applications?

The Björk Digital exhibition at Somerset House invited visitors to engage with her work through the latest in Virtual Reality (VR) technology.

I assisted visitors with their VR experiences in the Samsung Gear and the HTC Vive headsets, which felt like a valuable VR User Research exercise, giving me a better understanding of who experiences VR and how, and of the technical issues that can arise (e.g. with Vive sensors and software updates) and how to solve these. The image is a screenshot of the Somerset House event page.

Thanks to my proposals for innovative new solutions for Wonda VR (a non-coding authoring tool for interactive multi-platform VR experiences), their CEO Arnaud Dressen recommended TUI (with me as the internal lead) to join a consortium around Wonda VR. Eurecat (a technology centre in Spain) therefore invited us to join European Consortium ‘STORY360’ with 7 international partners, to collaborate in a H2020 project, focused on creating a 360 storytelling platform for immersive and interactive experiences. I helped Eurecat prepare the proposal, which only missed out on funding because of the exceptional amount and quality of competitors that year.

Thanks to this successful collaboration, I received an invitation for TUI to join another European VR Consortium from CyRIC (Cyprus Research and Innovation Centre Ltd) a year later, this time focusing on multi‐sensory, personalised, next generation AR & VR experiences for seamless air travelling (at airports and on aircrafts). I helped CyRIC prepare this proposal, until handing my lead role over before moving on from TUI.