AR/VR hardware and software have undergone significant development since their early stages. Now, software solutions are more consistent in quality, and the hardware is more affordable than ever before.
That’s making more companies consider implementing AR and VR into their staff training routines. The reasons are obvious: Augmented and Virtual Reality training saves money and keeps trainees out of harm’s way until they’re completely comfortable with their tools.
Let’s dive into Augmented and Virtual Reality employee training and see how it helps to make training more effective.
How Are VR and AR Improving Employee Training?
How Companies Use VR/AR in Training
Is VR Training Right for My Organization?
VR vs. AR: Which One Is Better?
How to Choose a VR Training Provider
Setting Goals when Using VR for Training
Using Virtual Reality for training helps companies make their programs safer, more convenient, and effective.
Instructional designers can use VR to create realistic training scenarios for specific roles. This allows companies to immerse trainees in a 360° virtual space where they can actively learn by interacting with objects and other trainees.
With Augmented Reality training, employees can interact with the real world while extending perception with virtual elements. These models can overlay physical objects or specific locations, adjusting to changing physical environments in real time.
Combined with a carefully structured learning curriculum, immersive technologies in the workplace can provide:
With all these and other benefits of Augmented and Virtual Reality training, 65% of companies already use or plan to use these technologies for employee training.
The most widespread use cases of AR/VR for employee training include:
In fields like engineering or construction, VR training programs allow trainees to practice tasks in a virtual environment, such as operating heavy machinery or assembling elements. This hands-on approach enables learners to develop muscle memory and refine techniques without the need for physical equipment.
Regarding hard skills, AR provides real-time guidance and enhances on-the-job learning. For example, at HQSoftware, we developed a tool at HQSoftware to enhance efficiency and accuracy for mechanics when repairing equipment by overlaying AR instructions.
Using Virtual Reality for training, instructors can put trainees in real-life situations where they have to find a solution to communication challenges. By providing a lifelike sense of the situation, staffers are encouraged to make reasoned decisions.
For example, instructors can use Virtual Reality to create an interactive environment, such as a conference room, where trainees can practice giving presentations or sales pitches.
Real-life crisis situations can impair a person’s ability to think clearly. Virtual Reality training provides a risk-free way to immerse people in realistic work scenarios, allowing them to polish their skills and practice drills with a clear mind.
For instance, the British Navy has implemented VR training software to create submarine and warship simulations. These simulations allow recruits to experience an emergency situation without any actual risk. This way, they are able to better understand how they must react in a real crisis and stay in control of the situation.
When hiring new staff, it’s crucial to get them oriented and working as quickly as possible. For example, a company can utilize VR technology to create a simulation that takes the newly hired employees around the building, showing them everything they need to know.
Augmented Reality training, in turn, allows for creating engaging and interactive presentations that can help new workers better understand the environment they will work in, as well as to explain company benefits, growth prospects, and important contacts.
IKEA has used Virtual Reality to build immersive simulations that allow workers to experience the workdays of their colleagues. This approach helps the staffers better understand the opportunities IKEA offers.
Augmented and Virtual Reality have proved to be effective learning tools for various industries with different use cases. For example:
How do modern businesses use AR to increase their revenues and outperform their industry competitors?
It would be dishonest to say that Virtual Reality training is a perfect match for any company and training purpose. It has its drawbacks, such as physical limitations, hardware restrictions, a steep learning curve, and more.With all this in mind, let’s determine whether AR/VR training might be a match for your company.
To decide where VR training is a good fit, you can consider the following:
If the answer is yes to any of these questions, a VR training simulator could be a perfect fit for your business. If you still have doubts, you can consider Augmented Reality for training over VR.
Both Virtual and Augmented Reality are great technologies that can bring staff training to a whole new level. They offer new ways of interacting with learning content that improves user retention.
But how do those two stack up against each other?
Let’s compare AR and VR for corporate training from three major points of view:
Augmented Reality for training is great for breaking down specific topics, providing navigation in a physical location, and enabling multiple people to interact with the same physical object.
If there is a need for more complex immersive training scenarios, such as recreating dangerous scenarios or emphasizing emotional engagement, VR would be a preferable option.
No matter which approach you choose, when it comes to building AR/VR solutions, you first need to conduct thorough research into the market and find reliable specialists in the field.
Read our comprehensive comparison of AR vs. VR employee training.
When choosing a VR training provider, you should pay attention to:
Virtual Reality is a complex technology that demands expertise across various disciplines such as development, design, and business analysis.
In terms of training, a subject-matter expert is a must, as a development team may be unaware of specific details in the sphere. For example, only after communicating with chefs were we at HQSoftware able to set up precise hand positioning of users when cutting vegetables for VR cooking training.
To take into account all nuances, HQSoftware’s AR/VR development team includes an experienced educational design lead, responsible for learning scripts. The specialist communicates closely with the client’s subject-matter experts to deliver a realistic training experience. Moreover, we can create learning scenarios from scratch, covering the full cycle of AR/VR training development.
Here’s what instructional designers do before the development process kicks off:
Having worked with 15+ AR/VR projects, among other aspects of designing VR training solutions, we also can :
With our experience, we aren’t limited to these options and can provide any AR/VR development services according to your training goals.
Want to create an AR/VR solution for employee training? We’re ready to help!HQSoftware has a team of skilled professionals ready to tackle the project. Ask me!
Anna Halias
Business Development Manager
Successful use of Virtual Reality for employee training depends entirely on setting the right training goals. Training goals usually can be divided into three groups:
While setting VR training goals, you can also utilize the SMART goals framework. SMART is the acronym that stands for:
With all that information at hand, businesses can prepare a well-thought-out plan for VR training implementation and build an efficient solution with a reliable vendor.
To build an effective AR/VR training program, you need to understand how such solutions work and what to consider when designing VR training.
At its most basic, VR training software includes the following elements:
As we can see from the architecture of the VR training app, the software always consists of several layers that are built with different technology.
| Web administration panel | JS, HTML, CSS, Python, Go |
| Cloud storage | Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud |
| VR training app | Unity, C languages, Oculus SDK, GearVR SDK, iOS/Android SDK, WebVR |
Virtual Reality for employee training can serve various business domains, solving different kinds of problems. Each case may require specific features, but there are many features that are essential in any type of VR training software.
These are features that will help you cover the basic needs of whatever domain you provide training for.
There are three major types of Virtual Reality employee training apps that companies can use, depending on their business needs:
All variables mentioned above, along with some other aspects, determine overall development costs. So, how much does AR/VR training software cost? Let’s sum up in the next section.
The rough cost of an AR app can vary from $11,000 for an MVP up to $65,000 for a custom AR app with basic features. The estimate for VR training can range from $35,000 to $150,000 depending on simulation capabilities.
The cost of designing AR/VR training depends upon the:
Additionally, VR training requires special hardware, with some of the more affordable options, such as those from Oculus, starting at $300 apiece.
In collaboration with Dementia Reality, HQSoftware has built a VR training program that immerses professionals and families in the world of dementia, providing firsthand insights into daily challenges and effective care strategies.
Covering various aspects of caregiving, from daily activities to communication techniques, the solution equips users with the knowledge and empathy needed to deliver high-quality care.
Alexey Dunaevsky
Educational Design Lead
at HQSoftwareThrough full immersion, learners are able to understand how people with dementia feel, which fosters an empathetic approach and reduces mistakes caregivers may make.
Our team also addressed the challenge of the lengthy and inconvenient loading of learning modules in a VR headset by implementing a custom compression module. This module not only streamlined the video downloading process but also eliminated the need for prolonged headset activity during the download, enhancing the overall user experience.
Bodyscope is an app for recreating plain MRI and CT images in volume in Virtual Reality, enhancing the perception of medical students, interns, and specialists in other medical fields.
With this VR app, learners can interact with 3D models, rotate and scale them, and apply filters to visualize specific tissues by density. This helps learners to improve their spatial vision and better understand how a pathology on a plain scan looks in the real human body, reducing mistakes while working with actual scans.
The app also allows for shared virtual sessions, enabling people from various locations to participate in the same simulation.
Several hospitals have already tested the solution as a supplementary tool for educating young doctors, with positive results. According to a transplant surgeon, VR allows for clearer visibility of details, which makes identifying and diagnosing pathology easier.
If you are looking to develop your AR/VR training solution — feel free to contact us. We will discuss your ideas, come up with a project specification and a cost estimate.
AR/VR Expert
A developer with extensive expertise in AR/VR, very ingrained into the topic of Mixed Reality development. Shares his knowledge and the results of many years of work.
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