Evaluating Seniors’ Virtual Reality Experience Performed at a Local Community Event in Japan

Abstract

Head-mounted display has become one of the most known hardware and best practice experience for virtual reality. However, it still lacks of opportunities for many people who may not have much interest in gaming such as seniors. While many seniors have some interest to virtual reality through watching television program, the opportunity to actually experience is still limited. Therefore, this paper focused first to provide an opportunity for seniors to experience virtual reality, and then investigate about their impression and acceptance. An event booth to experience virtual reality contents was provided at a local community event held for senior. Voluntary participants were asked to answer questionnaires after the virtual reality experience. The questionnaire was gathered from 11 seniors over the age 65. Evaluation of acceptance was done using the System Usability Scale, indicated not so high acceptance of usability though positive outcomes delivering higher satisfaction than anticipated.