Similar to traditional research firms, CVIR projects follow a format of discovery, recruitment, execution, collection, and debrief. The major difference is media, time, and cost — simply put, most organizations don’t conduct market research in 3D because it is too expensive, and takes too long to develop. CVIR leverages our combined expertise in rapid 3D development methods as well as deep research methodology to launch projects and capture results in as little as 6 weeks. A typical project might look like this:

1. Strategy & Intake: First, we work with your team to understand your research goals and develop your research plan.
2. Environment Creation: Your 3D environments are created inside Agora World and are QA tested before being opened to the testing environment.
3. Recruitment: Recruitment of participants begins concurrently with Environment Creation. We work with our specialty recruitment partners to find specific audiences, as well as sourcing actors to play interactive roles like doctors, customer services reps, etc.
4. Testing: We run moderated or unmoderated tests inside your environment with real users, during which, we have both moderated and unmoderated test designs, meaning our facilitators can guide and interact with users, or we can allow them to explore the environment unguided while monitoring data points from time on task to specific interactions each user has with the environment. We can also use actors to play anyone from sales associates to physicians inside your environment. All research is viewable by the client via “backrooms,” where they can watch and listen to different participants as they interact with the environment.
5. Collection & Debrief: We distill the meaningful data collected into insights, and we deliver those to you with actionable next steps.

No, we optimize the kind of research conducted based on the available hardware and needs of the customer. If you need fully VR-based research, that’s viable. We can also conduct research using:

• Desktop browsers
• Mobile Browsers
• Fixed and in-room VR environments

• Qualitative: Gain valuable feedback from users inside of a life-like 3D environment, understand likes and dislikes on elements like retail item organization, store layout, customer service processes, healthcare processes, doctor visits, and more.
• Quantitative: Using larger user groups or AI-generated users, simulate large amounts of traffic through a test environment. How long users take to check out, sign in, where attention is placed at given points, and where traffic is likely to bottle-neck in an environment can all be measured.
• UX: Test how users interact with your environment / product and collect feedback on which parts of the process are natural vs which detracted from the user experience.
• Healthcare: By masking personally identifiable information, Immersive Research allows researchers into the lives of patients and doctors like never before. Simulate actual healthcare interactions, such as doctor appointments, rep visits, and more while remaining compliant.
• Training / Simulation: Test how groups of individuals accomplish tasks together in a realistic 3D environment. Capture the interactions between users, as well as quantitative metrics like time on task, completion rate, etc.
• Retail: Test prototype layouts of stores in immersive 3D and collect data around item attention, customer service, checkout process, and more.

Yes, assets developed for one project can be saved and easily updated for future rounds of research, allowing you to conduct A/B tests. Likewise, you can test multiple versions of the different environments concurrently and CVIR will collect and collate the data.

On average, a project takes about 4-8 weeks. Many factors contribute to this answer, but our internal teams of researchers and 3D designers work with your team to deliver truly realistic environments and deeply insightful results.