Virtual environments for vocational training: user experience in culinary education

Περίληψη

 Although Virtual Environments (VE) with various levels of immersion have been used and evaluated in vocational and adult training with positive results, no such environments exist for culinary education. The aim of this study was to design a VE for culinary education and evaluate it in terms of user experience with two different levels of immersion: low (desktop) and high (Head Mounted Display - HMD). Twenty-four students and graduates of an Institute of Vocational Training specializing in either ICT or Culinary arts participated in this study. Results showed no significant differences in terms of spatial presence, usability and workload between the two interfaces. Nevertheless, participants using the HMD interface needed more time to complete a recipe and experienced much higher simulator sickness. It seems that the lower immersion interface is more appropriate for this specific VE.