MODSIM World Presentation, A Metaphor for Immersive Environments - Learning Experience Design Challenges and Opportunities

April 27, 2016 @ 3:30 pm - 4:00 pm

As part of the Training and Education Track at MODSIM World, Dr. Elaine Raybourn will present on her paper, “A Metaphor for Immersive Environments: Learning Experience Design Challenges and Opportunities.”

Learning experience design (LX) is a subset of user experience design (UX) that addresses the synthesis of learning sciences, human-computer interaction, and design thinking. Learning experience design puts the learner at the center of the design process. As the MODSIM community increasingly develops more immersive simulations and persistent experiences with virtual/mixed/augmented/synthetic realities, it may be useful to employ a metaphor to guide design and bring to the fore initial assumptions, biases, or expectations that may make their way into the design of learning experiences for military end users. Therefore the present paper utilizes the interactive storytelling metaphor of the Star Trek Next Generation holodeck to guide learning experience design and serve as a widely recognizable cultural metaphor. This perspective provides a basis for elaborating the holodeck metaphor in ways that may be relevant to identify challenges and opportunities for developers of virtual/mixed/augmented/synthetic realities. The present paper introduces the notion of the social construction of narrative, describes a framework for simulation experience design, and presents some challenges and opportunities that may impact the design of learning experiences in immersive simulation environments.