A Virtual Promotional Tool for Student Enrolment

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) has become more of a commodity in the past years due to the emergence of mobile VR head-mounts, which present a more affordable provider of VR by combining smartphone sensory data, and head-mount with applications made for the platform using the infrastructure of the smartphones. The VR phone application designed for the purpose of this study enables a realistic 360° virtual environment. The application is designed with the Aalborg University Esbjerg public relations department staff as stakeholders. The content displayed within is designed to attract potential students of Aalborg University Esbjerg, thus the scenes depict facilities provided by the university and its surrounding areas. Achieving this is possible using a Samsung Gear VR head-mount and one of its compatible smartphone attachments (Samsung Galaxy S7). The content displayed within the app is live-action and shot with a Samsung Gear 360 camera. A presence questionnaire is used to measure the level of involvement the user experienced. This facilitates a comparison study between the VR application and a more traditional tablet application. A secondary study was conducted in order to further analyse the possible impact that the addition of sound to the VR application might have over the level of presence. Results indicate that the users wearing VR head-mount experienced a higher level of presence compared to the ones using the tablet version. However, results show that the addition of sound has not statistically contributed to the increase in the level of presence as expected.