What 'Immersive' Actually Means - Digital Explorers' Diary #66

Welcome to the Digital Explorers’ Diary, a curated collection of thought-provoking topics about interactive technologies, AI, web3, sense-making, entrepreneurship, and psychology.

Insights on Immersive Experiences

The “Immersive” word is everywhere in 2024, and it’s used to qualify a very broad range of experiences, independently of the medium used.

What is an immersive experience, also known as “Location Based Entertainment”, and how does the audience perceive them? Let’s dive in.

As with all buzzwords, “immersive” is interpreted in many different ways and can appropriately apply to many different use cases. Take, for example, someone caught on their smartphone. More often than not, their attention is solely focused on the screen, unaware of anything outside that small rectangle of pixels. In a sense, they are in deep immersion. Time can fly by. You probably have experienced that sudden shock when coming back to reality that 20 minutes have passed without you realizing it.

Can we use these criteria to define a good immersive experience? Should it totally catch the attention of the attendees, transporting them into another dimension where time passes rapidly? Does immersive should also mean interactive?

Fortunately, we have some data to gain insights from, gathered by the Immersive Experience Network from over 2,000 people in the UK. Here are some of their findings - to take with a grain of salt as usual, as it’s on one country only.

What are attendees looking for?

This question is critical, as its answers will allow us to know how to design attractive experiences. They want to:

• Be part of the show, not just a spectator, to move away from the “witness” role.
• Have fun! With games, quizzes, or problems to solve.
• Being involved with their feelings and senses.
• Share the experience with friends, family, and children.
• Get value for their money. Especially in the current economic context, it is still very important to note.

In short, attendees want an experience that can be done in groups, engaging them emotionally, physically, and intellectually as well!

All attendees are not the same!

One of the most enlightening takeaways from this study is the classification of users into three categories:

• Paddlers: they prefer to observe rather than actively engage.
• Waders: in-between, a bit more engaged, but won’t go too deep.
• Swimmers: the all-in people wanting to explore all threads of the storyline.

As immersive experiences are likely to be done in groups, naturally, these three categories will be represented and must be taken into account when designing the experience. For example, if all attendees must wear a costume to engage, only Swimmers will likely want to participate.

Experiences types

Note that these categories are not necessarily split; for example, some escape rooms or immersive art can use AR/VR.

• Escape rooms: the most well-known type of immersive experience!
• Immersive & experiential art: popularized by installations such as Van Gogh or Team Lab, usually made with large dark rooms with projectors.
• Themed attraction: varying in genre and involvement, this can apply to theme parks or more specific ones, such as the Harry Potter attraction in Tokyo.
• Immersive theaters: also found in theme parks and very popular, they are your typical “4D” movie with moving seats, wind, scent, 3D glasses… It can go further with interactive props or storylines, such as in Hershey’s Great Candy.
• Scare room: The good old scare still works, but it now involves real actors, motion detection sensors, screens, projections…
• AR/VR: a wide range of experiences fall into that definition, from Virtual Reality games to do with friends like Eva to cultural and engaged experiences like Revivre or Noire.

Why AR/VR can be a good fit?

Drawing from all these insights, we can see that interactive technologies (Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality) are a perfect fit for immersive experiences. For brevity, I use “XR” as the umbrella term for these technologies below.

Flexibility

• XR can transform the existing space or transport attendees in a completely virtual environment within the same location and without huge fabrication costs.
• The storyline can evolve, transform, and be renewed more easily than with a pure physical installation.

Audience fit

• Either with collaborative VR games or with group-based visits in Mixed Reality, these technologies allow physical connection and digital experience to occur simultaneously.
• If designed correctly, it can fit all types of attendees. For example, Swimmers will wear headsets and engage fully, while Paddlers can collaborate from the side by helping their friends from a tablet or their own smartphone.

What’s next?

This study provides valuable insights into what makes an immersive experience attractive to all users. Use it as a checklist for your next project!

Have you considered using such experiences for your business? Let’s chat here or on LinkedIn to brainstorm!