Developing a Virtual Reality-Aided Learning Space for Secondary Education: The Service Design Approach

Virtual Reality (VR) has re-gained its popularity in recent years. Educational applications are an important agenda among the recent developments. Most related studies focused on the VR content design for course delivery. The physical learning space, where the VR devices and its related equipment are installed, is also a critical factor in developing such type of courses. However, current design of VR-aided learning spaces is still lack of a design strategy that is systematic, user-centered, and service-driven. This project investigates the potential of using Service Design (SD) methods to design a teaching-oriented VR Laboratory for secondary education. We had completed a full SD development cycle that included the four stages, namely Exploration, Creation, Reflection, and Implementation. The SD approach ensured a user-centered design process and considered the interests of multiple stakeholders. The proposed design was then physically implemented at a local school. Till the writing of this paper, the space has served more than 2,000 students. Judging by the regular use and the feedbacks collected from the semi-structured interview, we find the user-centered and co-creative characteristics of SD serve well to designing such a learning space. It is expected that the work can provide practical insights to the related design practitioners by demonstrating how the proposed deign approach facilitate the integration of emerging technologies such as VR within an educational environment.