EXPERIENTIAL TRAINING
VR TRAINING FOR GLOBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT
The use case for training in VR has been proven out over time to be successful in every metric used to measure the use of this medium. To take advantage of VR, I believe in using an experiential approach to training. By putting the user in life-like situations and scenarios that allow for interactivity, branching narratives and changes in user points of view, the user has an opportunity to learn, understand and even empathize at a much greater level. Given the opportunity to “relive” the experience from another character’s point of view helps deepen the opportunity a user can have for learning new information and affecting their own decisions.
Law enforcement training often requires that each “trainee” be certified to have been administered required information and measured in their situational response to the training information (also known as scenario based training). This type of training is a compliment to “tactical” training which varies widely within the spectrum of law enforcement agencies and regulations.
BUILDING A VR TRAINING PLATFORM
Axon provides training and certification for it’s Taser brand and BodyCam products to law enforcement officers and agents around the world. It employs highly experienced and trained Senior Master Instructors to develop and administer the training programs to Master Instructors who then train the regional Field Instructors. To provide training at a global scale, Axon has initiated an effort to create a robust digital training platform , Axon Academy, that can be accessed by regional instructors in the field as well as their trainees.
Jaunt and Axon partnered together to develop a phase 1 product for VR Experiential Training that would provide platform integrations, user training data, analytics and the ability to publish a library of interactive VR experiences (utilizing the Jaunt XR Platform) to a dedicated Axon VR Training app deployed on Oculus Go headsets.
The VR Training App
DESIGNING FOR THE OCULUS GO
The VR Training App would be specifically designed for VR mobile platforms. The Oculus Go provides cost vs. performance, mobility, reliability and ease-of-use benefits for the Instructors in the field who are primarily new to VR. Axon provided very clear guidance that the ability to get buy-in from Master Instructors for VR Experiential Training was critical to the success of this product/service design.
Who Are We Designing For?
THE TRAINING PYRAMID
The Axon training structure utilizes a scalable pyramid by creating an ever expanding network of Axon Certified Field Instructors. Axon Certified Regional Instructors can expect to instruct 200K+ trainees throughout the world. They are deployed on a scheduled basis with local and regional law enforcement departments.
The Axon Certified Regional Instructors administer pre-planned training exercises that are meant to bring scenario based training and certification modules to the trainees for a variety of certifications required by the trainee force to carry and use Axon devices and many times require re-certification after a period of time.
The Axon Certified Regional Instructor must also maintain certification throughout the year by attending required certification training events provided by the Axon Master Instructor courses.
Axon Master Instructor courses are created and administered by the top level subject matter experts at Axon - Senior Master Instructors.
The Training Environment
SCENARIO BASED TRAINING IN THE FIELD
Scenario based training for law enforcement is a series of modules designed to put the trainee into as close a real life situation as possible. The subject matter experts interviewed explain that their methods can include stunt actors, pyrotechnics and physical realities that a law enforcement officer/agent might encounter in a real-life scenario. Scenarios are typically set-up with team instruction and move out into a separate physical space. After the scenario has played out the trainees must document the details, their actions and the outcome as they perceived it. The instructors will evaluate their performance as well as their documentation and provide direct feedback to the trainees. The VR Experiential Training design decisions made were deeply informed by the Axon subject matter experts and are intended to replicate the already established cadence, intensity and flow of any Axon training day.
What Problems Are We Trying To Solve?
MOBILITY, EASE-OF-USE, PERFORMANCE DATA
The unique Axon training environment presents a number of design problems to solve. The introduction of unfamiliar hardware and the need to interact with it needed to be addressed for both the Instructors and Trainees. Simplicity in design and ease-of-use with the goal of being successfully adopted by both.
Instructors will need to be able to maintain and quickly setup the Oculus Go devices and the appropriate training content in the field.
Training sites do not always have network connections or internet services thus putting an emphasis on mobility and offline capabilities.
Data for each unique user session (such as date, location, user ID, Instructor ID, session performance data and training module version) must be maintained on the Axon Academy platform for legal and analytical certification.
All Instructor and Trainee interactions must follow a clear and easy to discover mental model of how to achieve tasks and goals.
DESIGNING USER FLOWS AND JOURNEY MAPS
Defining user flows and journey maps helps flush out possible solutions and refine those solutions based upon pain and touch points for each user.
The VR Training Modules
Scenario Based Training
The Axon VR Training App environment provides for a scalable and customizable training “library” to be maintained by the Instructor through the Instructor Mode.
The Training Mode feature is designed to allow for a minimal UI and simple interaction patterns that can be quickly discovered by the Trainee without Instructor help or lengthy tutorials. Allowing for each Trainee’s experience to be focused on the task at hand and successfully completed the module(s).
Interactivity In VR Training
Decision Based Branching Narratives & Multiple Points Of View
The VR Training Modules live within a 360 Environment and include multiple VR video based interactive scenarios that provide for decision based responses that trigger branching in the narrative. Each decision the user makes provides an immediate narrative change and the results of those user decisions can be reviewed through the perspective of other characters within the narrative to achieve a “re-live through the eyes of…” experience.
Interactive Templates
While each interactive module can contain any number of perspectives and scenarios a foundational template was designed and tested to provide a clear flow for how each user would achieve completion of a module. This provides for accurate scoring from module to module independent of the content or the number of narrative decision branches. This also provides the ability for trajectories of user session data to be implemented in a scalable way.
Decision Based Scenarios
Branching Narrative Interactivity
I’ve added a short example of the interactions I designed for this Schizophrenia scenario based upon the Subject Matter Experts’ input and behavioral models they have defined.