Immersive Experience

HTC Creative Labs

New virtual reality headset and system software for business

Role

Principal Researcher

Year

2019–2022

Impact

Helped transition HTC’s VR strategy from consumer to enterprise

Business Challenge: refocus HTC’s VR strategy from consumer to enterprise, replacing internal opinion with real customer research and usability evidence.

Result: research built trusted relationships with customers and directly shaped product design decisions — engineering and sales teams began requesting more research on their own.

HTC Creative Labs was a small innovation team in Seattle, owned by HTC in Taiwan. As Principal Researcher, I started the lab’s research program to guide a high-quality enterprise VR headset. Healthcare was a key opportunity: pain management, rehabilitation for post-stroke patients, training for emergency care workers, and desensitization training for people with phobias. Other opportunities included highly technical training in aerospace, manufacturing, and safety in dangerous environments.

I set up panels of expert advisors, visited customer sites, and initiated exploration studies with customers and developers to shape design strategy for our product pipeline — from hardware feature requirements to new system software interaction models, such as gestural interfaces for hand tracking.

Strategy research focused on businesses with significant VR initiatives: surveys, fieldwork, and 50 in-depth interviews across 15 industries. In parallel, UX research ran nine months of usability and A/B testing of the foundational software across the U.S. and Taipei — covering ergonomics, gestural control, and content — steadily refining our tools for remote testing through the Covid shutdown.

Persona slide ‘Build Trust & Acceptance’: an architecture firm converting a historic building into a theatre for live VR performances, with personas Alex, Abbey, Ahn, actors, and the public — I created personas based on actual case studies where VR would bring substantial value to an industry or business.

The work surfaced clear priorities about refining device management for developers and IT, making hand tracking more intuitive to ease adoption, and eliminating setup frustration so that new users felt delight with the first experience.

“We love the form factor and the usability.” — Sector 5 Digital

HTC Vive Focus 3 virtual reality headset on a table — Research helped define the fit and comfort of new hardware for Vive Focus.

VR headset tutorial screen showing how to turn passthrough mode off — Research tested laser beam hand controls for VR setup.

First-person VR view of hands using gestural controls on a settings panel — Typing and precise selection in VR was a challenge informed by research.

Detailed Case Study

A closer look at the research program behind the Vive Focus 3, from the first questions to launch and what I learned along the way.

Research goals

Refocus HTC’s strategy from consumer to enterprise.
Use research evidence to move design decisions from internal opinion to customer input and usability testing.

Research questions

Strategy: What VR pipeline products and features will enable HTC to meet the needs of enterprise customers?

Bubble chart of enterprise VR use case categories mapped by feature demand: process training, precision training, remote collaboration, design visualization, group simulation and marketing visualization — Enterprise use cases mapped by the features they demand.

UX: What gestural interfaces and interactions will support business customers and their users?

Virtual home environment with desert views and a whiteboard reading Welcome to Vive Reality System 2.0 — The Vive Reality System 2.0 home environment, where new gestures were tested.

Strategy & Experience Plan

The plan ran on two tracks. Strategy research set out to discover customer VR use cases and future needs. Experience research informed prototyping and product development: learning about tracking technologies, testing prototypes of interaction models, and evaluating prototype ergonomics.

Research timeline from Q4 2019 to Q2 2021. Strategy track: industry trends, discovery fieldwork, synthesis and report, remote interviews, report update. Experience track: technology reviews, competitive analysis, prototype development and test, design review, iterate and test, synthesis and report. Covid shutdown in Q2 2020, a freeze in Q3, launch in Q2 2021 — Research plan, Q4 2019 to launch in Q2 2021, spanning the Covid shutdown and a project freeze.

Hardware Research

Headset sensor layout and ergonomic fit options were studied in parallel.

Diagram of headset lenses and tracking sensors

Back of a person’s head wearing a prototype headset strap

Face gasket and a fan of colored fit gauges on a table

A participant wearing a VR headset during a usability session in an office

Strategy research methods

We focused on businesses with significant VR initiatives.

25 customers surveyed for demographics
5 observational fieldwork visits before Covid
Technology review at the I/ITSEC conference
50 remote in-depth interviews across 15 industries
Task analysis and pain points in common workflows
Themes and patterns, inferences and systems thinking
Concept testing with customer VR managers
Panels of expert advisors and customer site visits

UX research methods

Ergonomic reviews for hardware and gestures
Think-aloud, task-based usability tests
A/B tests of foundational system software
9 months, 8 studies, 10–25 users each, from novice to expert
Participants were HTC employees, friends and family in the U.S. and Taipei
Probes for understanding and sensibility
Thematic analysis of reactions to the UI
Likert ratings on gestural control and content
Continuous improvement of our remote testing tools

Usability test protocol for the launcher, with tasks and interview questions beside screenshots — A launcher test protocol and a virtual test space.

Virtual room with floating instruction panels used in testing — A launcher test protocol and a virtual test space.

Insights

Strategy

Ecosystems: return on investment and scale require IT systems integration and long-term stakeholder management.
Enterprises: adoption barriers include security, reliability, performance, complex workflows and cultural norms.
Developers: solid SDKs are a priority for launch success.

Journey map of training deployment pain points in 15 steps, from initial setup, environment prep and device readiness through donning the headset, calibration, training, doffing, sanitization and charging — Journey map of pain points when a business deploys VR for training, from setup to charging.

Military medics practicing emergency care while wearing VR headsets — Enterprise VR in the field: emergency medicine and firefighter training.

Firefighter in full gear training with a VR headset — Enterprise VR in the field: emergency medicine and firefighter training.

“We need passthrough for emergency medical teams to use equipment as fine as needles and cannulas. The optimum field of view would be 120–130°, 2160 × 2160, 90 frames per second.” — Prof. Bob Stone, Human Factors Specialist

Value of methods: qualitative probes and behavioral observation revealed perception, rationale and sensation, and generated ideas for improvements.
In comparison: timed tests and spatial analytics with business users would yield stronger statistics, and lab tests would reduce variability.

Pinch and positioning summary report listing delightful moments and biggest pain points, with participant photos — A study summary on pinch and positioning gestures: delightful moments and biggest pain points.

Recommendations

Strategy

Focus on process training and design visualization.
Solve for device management needs.
Intuitive hand tracking is high value.
Automatic adjustments will ease deployment.
Enterprise apps lead to consumer content.

Six enterprise use cases: process training, design visualization, group simulation, precision training, marketing visualization and remote collaboration — Six enterprise use cases that shaped the product roadmap.

Definitions: UX design principles, specific improvement actions with illustrated issues, and suggestions for prototype iterations.
Criteria: performance specifications and use scenarios from customers, and experience design standards for system software.

Design principles applied to keyboard interactions: build trust and acceptance, support nuanced communication, create seamless transitions, make data accessible — Design principles applied to keyboard interactions.

Impact

Research built trusted relationships with customers.
Human-centered design supported customer needs.
Engineering began asking for more research.
New collaborations with internal teams started flowing.

“Resolution is fantastic. It is the most comfortable, sharpest headset.” — Agile Lens

“Focus 3 has ticked the check boxes. We now have senior management buy in.” — UPS

Looking back

What I would push for in the next round of research:

Gain access to enterprise employees as participants.
Expand methods and tools for combining data.
Do extended research with customers and developers.
Create research and experiential storytelling in VR/XR.

Illustration of a woman in a VR headset in a library, interacting with a virtual guide — Experiential storytelling in VR is a natural next step for sharing research findings.