Creating incredible client experiences
Virtual and augmented reality—once the realm of science fiction—can sometimes seem more like glossy add-ons in big-budget movies instead of practical options worth sharing with clients. Instead of just watching movie superheroes manipulate translucent models or swipe across holographic screens, however, designers can now use the latest, newest technology to amaze their customers and create spectacular experiences for them.
Whether fully immersing homeowners in new virtual reality experiences or using augmented reality to imagine improvements visually overlaid on reality, the process of creating the most incredible client experiences will be enhanced by taking care to avoid any pitfalls and building the viewer’s enthusiasm.
Avoid potential pitfalls
Perhaps inevitably, the same 18th-century landscape panorama that so intrigued viewers was said to make Queen Charlotte feel “seasick” on first viewing. Today, virtual reality can create a similar sense of discomfort if creators are not careful.
The racing jumps and leaps that might be popular with video game players are often too quick and disorienting for those viewers new to virtual reality, especially when the goal is not to win a high-speed game, but rather to explore and discover a new pool and landscape. Therefore, it is important to create a comfortable environment that viewers enjoy exploring at their own pace.
One research team has even found that virtual reality experiences can be an excellent way to help people feel a lasting connection with nature.
To create that strong connection, designers might choose to layer a design over the homeowner’s familiar outdoor space, building a comfortable environment that clients feel relaxed enough to want to explore, even while wearing a virtual reality headset that blocks their view of the real world.
Enhance familiar reality
The Londoners who flocked to Barker’s panorama did so in part because they were drawn to the new way of seeing their own familiar city; his first work, of another city, was less popular.
It was only after he painted London that the new way of sharing a 360-degree view gained in popularity. In fact, for the sake of his enormous, and enormously popular, landscape painting, Barker custom-built a rotunda that “would become for over sixty years one of the several buildings that made Leicester Square the center of London’s popular entertainment industry.”
Nearly two centuries later, Heilig’s patent for the Sensorama simulator also recognized the importance of creating familiarity. In it, he noted letting someone “experience a situation or an idea in about the same way that he experiences everyday life” would help them not just understand “better and quicker” but also feel “drawn to the subject matter with greater pleasure and enthusiasm.”
That said, what some researchers point to as a possible drawback of virtual reality with respect to movies and games proves, in fact, to be an advantage for pool and landscape designers:
“The most surprising twist in the evolution of [virtual reality] VR may turn out to be the pace of the new medium,” it has been noted. “Jumping from one perspective to another can create a literal sense of nausea.” But when exploring in virtual reality, people often “don’t want to move on to another experience once they’ve put the headset on. They want to linger.”
This is in part because, when analyzing the decision-making process, researchers found “customers, it turns out, make most purchase decisions almost automatically. They look for what’s familiar and easy to buy,” attracted more by the “easy” choice than the perfect one.
With virtual reality, it is easy to situate even the most innovative and creative project design within a reassuringly familiar outdoor space, and then give customers the space to explore, and even linger, over the details that attract their curiosity and excite their enthusiasm.
Design in the future
Designers today will be able to use virtual and soon augmented reality to realize what Barker set out to achieve back in 1787: “to make observers, on whatever situation he [she] may wish they should imagine themselves, feel as if really on the very spot.”
Soon, it will be possible to design without being tied to a workstation. Using tablets, gloves, and even hand gestures sketched in the air, designers with their clients will be able to see results immediately, as though the new design were already placed in the client’s outdoor living space, ready to be enjoyed.
Just as artists once transitioned from the pencil to the computer, from early computer-aided design (CAD) programs to more flexible (and user-friendly) 3D design software, artists and designers today have the opportunity to use virtual and augmented reality to create the most immersive experiences yet.
Noah Nehlich is the founder of Structure Studios. As the creator of Pool Studio Pool Design Software, he is into everything 3D. With more than 16 years’ experience building the design software pool and landscape designers commonly use today, Nehlich’s goal is to improve lives through 3D experiences. He can be reached via e-mail at noah@structurestudios.com.
