Creating user-based interactive experiences facilitated with mediated reality

Abstract

Mediated Reality refers to the ability to add and subtract information from the environment or manipulate one's perception of reality using smart-wearable devices, hand-held devices or computers. Mediated Reality can be divided into Virtual and Augmented. This work focuses on interactive user-experiences of Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality aims to create a believable, interactive, computer-based and explorable alternative reality for the user. These immersions can be used to create real-life scenarios that are otherwise tedious to recreate. It has been statistically proven that people, nowadays, have been facing sexual harassment all across the world and this is an issue that needs to be looked into and taken action upon. We create a VR environment that simulates real-world scenarios that victims of sexual harassment face. Currently, there are several self-defense training programs running across the world to better prepare people for such situations. However, these programs are unable to create a real panic situation and often make the trainee unaware of the actual scenario that they may face during sexual harassment. Our work aims to provide a platform for the trainees to experience such realistic scenarios facilitated by Virtual Reality and be better prepared both physically and mentally. We conducted a survey with over 350 people (all genders) to provide a framework of the various dimensions of sexual harassment which is further used to create VR applications suitable for training. We plan to conduct a summative user study to evaluate and compare the preparedness of the users post the study.