How analytics dashboards contribute to assessing the behavior of virtual reality users from xapi tracking logs

Resumo

Virtual reality, a technology through which people can interact with a virtual world in which they feel immersed, it is increasingly becoming part of our daily life, not only for its evident usefulness and applicability but also because it is getting more affordable. As virtual reality experiences are on the rise, it is worth researching how users behave within them, to try improving their content, thus anticipating what users might prefer. For this reason, an analytics dashboard was developed, so it was necessary to previously set up a log system, based on xAPI, to track all the actions users may carry out. Although xAPI is a standard originally designed to track learning experiences, there was no problem in using it to track any actions we wanted. It was an open log system, sharing a common language with both the corresponding virtual reality player (the log generator) and the analytics dashboard (the log collector) but totally decoupled from them. Thanks to these characteristics, our dashboard is able to analyze data from different types of virtual reality applications without much more effort than from only one type of application. Once the logs have been extracted and transformed into profitable information, the analytics dashboard can produce several figures and statistical outcomes about the variables under study, out of which patterns can be detected and guidelines can be drawn to help virtual reality producers to enhance their work. Moreover, final users may take advantage of the dashboard to review, evaluate and even adjust their interactions, particularly when the virtual reality experience contains learning components. And more so for teachers, who may also use the dashboard to evaluate their students. To come to these conclusions, a detailed user study on a 360º hypervideo experience was conducted, where most of the possibilities offered by the analytics dashboard were illustrated, with very good effect. Therefore, we are in a position to say that our objectives were achieved. We must be clear that the conclusions extracted from the data generated by a particular virtual reality experience are, in principle, exclusive to this experience, because of its own features. In short, it should be highlighted that the obtained tool can offer very interesting behavioral results from a great variety of experiences designed for a great variety of virtual reality applications.