Remote Jewish Experiences for the Aging Population through VR
Fall 2022
After seeing the emotional effects of COVID, particularly on those 65+ in my Jewish community, I became interested in how Jewish practices and traditions could be translated virtually. I pursued this research intending to answer the question;
Could VR experiences help people 65+ feel more connected to Judaism during isolation?
Skills Used
Figma
VR
User Journey Mapping
Persona building
Qualitative & Quantitative User Research
Field Studies
Contexual Inquiry
Google Form Surveying
Secondary Research
Before approaching users, I began by collecting and
studying articles and studies related to the topic area,
while reaching out to potential participants.
Primary Research
With a better background, I then developed a script and
interviewed 7 indidviduals and 7 experts on the topic,
both in person and online.
Workshop
Working with fellow UX Researchers, I planned and ran workshop as a part of the ideation process to identify themes, emotions, and potential ideas based off of the previous interviews.
At the sametime, I expertimented with tools to bring physical objects into Virtual Reality while maintaining their original qualities. In this case I used my Mom’s Siddur (prayer book) from the 1970s.
Research Artifacts
User Persona
From the primary and secondary research I gathered, I created a person and journey map in order to inform the next stage of prototyping & testing as well as synethesize they key data I had collected.
User Journey Map
Prototyping
Using simple immersive video testing I recorded emotional reactions to 3 seperate VR experiences;
A) 360 degree Youtube Video of Singing Jewish Orthodox Service with guitar
B) 360 Youtube Video of Western Wall
C) Played an interactive game of some sort (Beat Saber or Bogo)
Final Deliverable
As the final deliverable, I created and presented a deck summarizing all of the finds and reccomendations on future steps.