Viability of Virtual Reality techniques in identifying environmental stressors on female employees in an IT workplace

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Teknik och samhälle

Datavetenskap och medieteknik

Examensarbete 15 högskolepoäng, grundnivå

Viability of Virtual Reality techniques in identifying

environmental stressors on female employees in an IT

workplace

Rikard Almgren

Amin Harirchian

Examen: Kandidatexamen 180hp Handledare: Zahra Ghaffari Huvudområde: Datavetenskap Examinator: Alberto Alvarez Program: Systemutvecklare

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Sammanfattning

Dagens IT-område är tungt mansdominerad trots att det arbetas med att introducera fler kvinnor till fältet och det arbetas för att behålla dessa kvinnliga anställda [2, 3, 5]. Denna forskning visar hur Virtual Reality (VR) tekniker kan användas som verktyg för att identifiera en av de faktorer som kan vara orsaken till att kvinnor lämnar, nämligen de fysiska miljöstressorerna som påverkar kvinnliga anställda inom IT-branschen. Målet med denna studie var att utvärdera genomförbarheten av ett VR-baserat tillvägagångssätt för att testa faktorer som miljöstressorer. Studien försöker också introducera mer information om VR-baserad testning och observation och vilka fördelar det kan medföra samt ge information till IT-baserade företag där fysiska miljöstressorer kan orsaka missnöje på arbetsplatsen bland kvinnliga anställda. Studien gjordes i fyra steg, en litteraturstudie för att samla in information om situationen för kvinnliga medarbetare samt aktuell forskning inom VR, ett design and creation steg för att skapa en prototyp för att identifiera stressorer på en arbetsplats, en pilotstudie för att bekräfta designbeslut och allmän testbarhet och slutligen ett fallstudie-experiment av kvinnliga anställda på ett IT-konsultföretag för att samla in data och utvärdera VR-lösningen som ett verktyg för att identifiera och utvärdera stressorer på kvinnliga anställda. Uppgifterna från experimentet samlades in genom inspelning av användarinteraktioner med den virtuella miljön och via enkäter. Två enkäter användes, en före VR-upplevelsen och en efter. Detta gjordes för att ta reda på hur VR-upplevelsen påverkat deltagarna och om de kunde identifiera olika stressorer. Resultaten av studien visar att alla fem av de utvärderade miljöstressorerna kunde identifieras med hjälp av VR-lösningen och att man kan potentiellt hitta sätt att minska stress som kvinnliga anställda upplever. Detta genom att tillämpa det som har hittats med en studie som denna studie. Lösningen kan också potentiellt anpassas för att vara tillämplig på andra områden än IT.

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Abstract

The Information Technology field of today is heavily male-dominated despite work to introduce more women to the field and work to retain these female employees [2, 3, 5]. This research shows how Virtual Reality (VR) techniques can be used as a tool to identify one of the factors that could be the cause of women leaving, namely the physical environmental stressors that affect female employees who work in IT industries. The goal of this study was to evaluate the viability of a VR based approach to testing real-life factors such as environmental stressors. The study also tries to introduce more information about VR based testing and observation and what advantages it may bring as well as provide information to IT-based companies on which physical environmental stressors could cause workplace dissatisfaction among their female employees. The study was done in four steps, a literature review to gather information about the situation for female employees and the current research in the field VR, a design and creation step to generate a prototype to gauge the viability of a VR based approach to identifying stressors in a workplace, a pilot study to confirm design decisions and general viability of testing and finally a case study experiment of female employees from one IT consultancy company to collect data and evaluate the VR solution as a tool for identifying and evaluating stressors on female employees. The data from the experiment was collected by recording the user interactions with the virtual environment and by questionnaires. Two questionnaires were used, one before the VR experience and one after. This was done in order to find out how the VR experience influenced the participants and whether they were able to identify various stressors. The results of the study show that all five of the evaluated environmental stressors could be identified using the VR solution and that one could potentially find ways of reducing stress experienced by female employees by applying what was learned using a solution such as this one. The solution could also potentially be further modified to be applicable to other fields than IT.

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background and related work

The Information Technology (IT) sector and its technologies advance at a rapid rate and to keep up, the workforce needs to grow rapidly as well. To tap into the full potential of the workforce, there is a need to employ both women and men [1] to unlock all perspectives and aid innovative processes.

Unfortunately, the tech industry is currently male-dominated [2, 3, 4] and struggles to retain female employees [2, 3, 5]. Of the women who decide to pursue higher education in various Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) fields, including Computer Science, reports show that 32% feel stalled and are likely to leave their jobs in SET fields within a year and that half of these women decide to pursue a career in a non-SET field [2, 5]. Over a longer period, 41% of women leave their jobs in SET-fields, as opposed to 17% of men [2, 5].

The reason behind this, according to Women in Tech, is workplace dissatisfaction with the causes appearing to be multifaceted with social, economic and environmental factors [2] all playing a part in increasing stress levels and as a result, several women feel uncomfortable in their workplace. Environmental factors such as poor lighting, odors, cramped spaces, and noise pollution have previously been identified as problems and have made people feel uncomfortable in their workplaces across multiple fields [6, 7].

Identifying factors that can cause stress becomes increasingly important in today’s society, for the individual it can be personal health and growth [8], whereas for employers it may pertain to the efficiency and overall health of a company as well as employee retainment. High stress has been shown to increase employee turnover [9].

Environmental factors can potentially disrupt the workflow of employees, affecting their job performance and by extension also reducing their job satisfaction [10]. There are also differences in male versus female environments and gender stereotypical things present in an area primarily run by or designed for men may affect female employees negatively [11, 12].

Virtual Reality (VR) technology provides valuable opportunities; one of these is the ability to simulate a Virtual Environment that would not be feasible in reality. These environments allow users to experience things that they otherwise would not be able to. Several studies have experimented with using VR technology as a solution or alternative to different problems [13, 14, 15].

Marois Kyriakou and Yiorgos Chrystanthou show in their study [13] that VR can be employed to construct scenarios in which you can test and observe social behaviors such as responsiveness and group belonging.

In another study by Yang Zhou and Shyang Wang [14] they attempt to identify the potential benefits of employing VR in reality shows, akin to augmenting a format to

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A third study by Valentin Schwind and Pascal Knierim [15] investigated implementations of VR itself by studying how different genders react to their VR avatars physical traits such as hands. The study highlights that women and men have different expectations and preferences when they control an avatar and that it may be beneficial to tailor this avatar to the user to increase the sense of belonging.

Testing of environmental stressors has been done in other settings as well. James P. Kohn and Gregory H. Frazer did a study on academic stressors, stressors which crop up during academic work [16]. This work includes a number of physical environmental stressors, such as hot, cold and crowded classrooms as well as poor lighting. The physical stressors were rated comparatively low to most of the stressors identified in that study when in the context of deteriorated performance, but the authors mention that this does not suggest that they are of little consequence and that they may have a cumulative effect on stress.

1.2 Definition of problem

Environmental stressors in workplaces are potential causes for employee turnover and workplace dissatisfaction [2, 8, 9]. In this paper we will be looking at whether a VR solution can be used to identify these environmental stressors and methods of reducing their impact. We will be employing a VR solution to model and test potential environmental stressors in real time to attempt to identify those that may exacerbate stress and workplace dissatisfaction.

Female employees at an IT company were chosen as the target for the study due to IT companies having a hard time retaining their female employees [2,5, 17]. If physical environmental stressors can successfully be evaluated on female employees using a Virtual Reality solution there is potential for companies to introduce a cost-efficient solution with minimal disruption to actual working environments in order to identify elements that could cause workplace dissatisfaction.

1.3 Purpose

The purpose of the study is to evaluate the viability of a VR based approach to testing real-life factors such as environmental stressors. In doing this, we hope to introduce more information about VR based testing and observation and what advantages it may bring as well as provide more information to IT based companies on which physical environmental stressors can cause workplace dissatisfaction among their female employees. The VR based approach may provide a cost-efficient approach to modeling physical environments and their impact on female employees.

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1.4 Research Questions

1. Which environmental stressors exist?

2. Which environmental stressors can be evaluated using Virtual Reality? 3. How can a Virtual Reality solution be applied to help identify physical

environmental stressors on female employees in IT workplaces?

4. Can Virtual Reality be used to find ways of alleviating physical stressors on female employees in IT workplaces?

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2 Method

In order to collect sufficient data, it was necessary to involve a number of steps. First, there was a need to explore the current situation in VR research, environmental stressors and the general situation for women in IT in order to make sure that our information would be relevant and useful. The decision was made to have a 4-step approach to this study.

The steps used are Exploratory Research [18, 19], Design and Creation [19], Pilot Study [20, 21] and Case Study [19].

An initial round of exploratory research was conducted to attempt to identify key questions and points that could be the foundation of our testing. This was not done as a stand-alone step, but as part of our information gathering.

After identifying the underlying questions, the work of designing the VR application began and a prototype was developed. The prototype was improved upon up to the time of our experiment, but unlike other approaches, such as Design and Creation, the prototype was never iteratively worked upon based on our results. It was made in preparation of our intended experiment and did not change.

In order to ensure the viability of the prototype application, a pilot study was conducted to investigate ease of use. The idea was to use the information from the pilot study to simplify controls and rectify mistakes that could potentially disrupt the experiments.

Due to the requirements involved in the conducting of VR experiments, such as time, equipment and availability of test subjects, an Case Study approach was adopted. We were fortunate enough to have a good relationship with a local branch of a software consultancy firm and were able to perform our experiments on their staff and premises.

In this study we simulate a workplace by using VR in which the participants can move freely and experience a different workplace by their own. This was done in order to collect information from these experiences and see if this information could be used to identify environmental stressors and if it was possible to come up with ideas to create an improved, balanced and comfortable workplace for female employees and suggest potential methods of enhancing workplace productivity. The methodology of this study has several steps as following:

Step 1: Exploratory research study - Literature review for gathering information about environmental stressors, women workplace dissatisfactions and Virtual reality. (For research question 1 and 2)

Step 2: Design mockups and prototype- The purpose of the mock-ups is to show how the problems can be fixed in VR and give IT companies a suggestion of a workplace design. (For research question 2)

Step 3: Pilot Study - A pilot study with 2 participants was conducted to gather initial data about the ease of use and viability of testing approach. (For research question 2)

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Step 4: Case Study Experiment - Testing user experience of the designed VR workplace and evaluation. (for research question 2, 3, 4)

2.1 Method description

2.1.1 Exploratory research

Exploratory research is done when there is a small amount of information on a topic and there is an interest in exploring it further. It is not done to provide any conclusive results, but rather to identify potential research questions and to better understand the problems. It is generally used to understand and in turn refine a problem statement, gather facts about the current situation in order to develop a new approach and suggest a new theory [18]. In this case, it is not use any differently. There is a ongoing research in the application and potential uses of VR and there is ongoing research on why women are leaving SET fields. We employed exploratory research to identify whether there was a ground to employ VR to experiment with and see if it would be possible to identify environmental stressors in a simulated IT workplace.

2.1.2 Design mockups and prototype

Based on the problems found in literature reviews concerning the workplace dissatisfactions among female employees combined with some basic guidelines from the company that was helped with this study, a prototype was created showing an alternative design for the workplace environment. As the target group were IT employees, a modern office space was created using elements from the office where the prototype was developed as inspiration. The purpose of the prototype was to have an easily modifiable workplace environment where problem statements could be explored in real time. We believe that the idea of having a real time prototype that can be experienced through VR could be a powerful tool for companies when it comes to workplace design. By being able to test out changes in real-time with a relatively low cost in comparison to actually implementing them. For example, repainting the walls in all the colours of the rainbow in a VR application costs nothing once the environment is set up, whereas repainting an office could be costly and disruptive to the daily workflow. This gives value to companies in the form of a new possible design with a potentially better user experience, and it also overall shows the type of changes and results a company might achieve by testing. The design mockups and prototype were created with the gaming engine “Unity” [22].

For designing and prototyping the VR office required several hardware and software components. For the creation of the virtual reality experience, the HTC Vive VR System has been used, which consists of a VR headset (Fig. 1) to display the 3D scene, two base stations ,and a pair of controllers (Fig. 1) for movement and interaction in the VR environment.The headset's 15ft (4.7m) long was connected to a MSI Infinite A 8RC Intel featuring an Intel(R) Core(™) i7-6700K (4.00 GHz) with 32GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card.

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Fig. 1: HTC Vive (Headset, Controllers) by PB licensed under CC BY-SA / No Modification [Accessed May 24th 2019]

The actual VR simulation was built in the Unity game engine. While it is clear that the assets could not fool anyone into believing that they are interacting with the real world, unity allows for a good simulation of lights and shadows, as well as allowing for realistic scaling of models which allows for immersion despite knowing that the world isn’t real. This immersion is the key to simulating the effects of environmental stressors as the world needs to be real enough to react to. The visual fidelity of the Unity rendered world is acceptable and on par with some current day offerings.

2.1.3 Pilot Study

In order to assess the viability of a prototype or approach, pilot studies can be used. They are generally cheaper to implement and may provide indicative results as well as outlining flaws in testing methodology. If the pilot study does not go smooth, one can generally be sure that the full-scale experiment or study will have similar problems. As such, we employed a small pilot study to see if we could identify issues with our instructions or if our subjects would find a particular event difficult to understand. We used the data from the pilot study to refine our instructions and made some minor changes to our prototype to streamline the experiments.

2.1.4 Case Study Experiment

The Case Study [19] experiment covered a single company and 12 participants (12 female employees at an IT consultancy firm, age: 23–60 years) participated in our experiment. The experiment consisted of two questionnaires and an interactive VR experience. We set up a user experience questionnaire containing 2 parts (Pre-VR questionnaire and post-VR user experience questionnaire). Each questionnaire had 4 sections that were mapped to each other in order to allow us to quickly be able to identify whether the experiment influenced a change in their opinion. The pre-VR questionnaire (See Appendix A) had the sections General Information, Virtual Reality Expectations, Dream workplace and Environmental stressors. The post-VR

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questionnaire had General Information, Virtual Reality experience, Preferences and the dream workplace, and Environmental Stressors and you. Each participant was asked to fill in the pre-VR questionnaire before the VR-experiment and the post-VR questionnaire after the VR-experiment.

The equipment for the experiment itself was the same setup as mentioned before in the Design mockups and prototypes step. A HTC Vive Virtual Reality Headset with two base stations [23] set up in a small (~3x3 meters) room. The application was run directly in Unity in order to give us access to the tools we needed during the experiment.

The participants were asked to collaborate in three stages. The initial stage is a questionnaire in which the participants were asked to express their expectations and describe an ideal workplace, as well as what experiences they have previously had. In the second stage, the participants were equipped with a VR headset and will experience a virtual workplace. During this step, the participants were asked to share their experiences and provide verbal feedback to real-time testing. The third stage is another questionnaire where the participants were asked to share what they felt during the experiment and whether their initial expectations held fast or if the experiment changed their opinion. Beyond this, a data analysis will be conducted on the collected data to identify stressors and investigate potential ways of reducing them.

2.1.4.1 Description of experiment process

1. Case Study Experiment: Cybercom female employees

a. Pre-experiment questionnaire - Initial data gathering (See Appendix A for the questionnaire)

i. Ask participant to fill out the sections of the questionnaire. Clarify questions if necessary, but avoid influencing the participant.

ii. Analyse together with post-questionnaire to find out whether opinions changed.

b. VR Experiment

i. Observe and record(Anonymous by text) experiences

ii. Real time colour/noise/lighting/spacing/greenery analysis.

c. Post-experiment questionnaire (using same participants as pre-experiment) (See Appendix B for the questionnaire)

i. Ask participant to fill out the sections of the questionnaire. Clarify questions if necessary, but avoid influencing the participant.

ii.

Joint analysis of the results of the pre- and post-experiment questionnaires

2.1.5 Experiment Details

The experiment itself will cover the testing of a selection of physical environmental stressors. These physical environmental stressors were chosen based on their potential to be modeled in a Virtual Reality environment. The chosen stressors

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First the participants were asked to describe their “dream workplace” in terms of lighting, colour-schemes, noise, spacing and greenery. After this they were introduced to the virtual environment.

Lighting was tested by changing the intensity of the ceiling lights in the virtual office in different 6 steps; 0/25/50/75/100% intensity where 0% was no light, 25% was dim, 50% was considered to be lit but not bright, 75% was bright and 100% was very bright.

Noise was tested by playing a generic sound clip of everyday background noise and slowly increasing the volume until participants stated that they were no longer able to focus on what they were doing in the virtual environment.

Colour was tested by changing the colour of the walls in the virtual office clockwise along a colour-wheel while also changing saturation for brighter and darker versions of the colour.

Spacing was tested by allowing the participants to select their preference in open spots in the office. There were spots without any colleagues next to them, with a mixed team close by, with a female only team close by and also secluded lounge area.

Non-playable characters (NPCs) were added to virtual office environment in order to make the virtual workplace more immersive and believable and in order to make the participants feel that they are partaking in a real workplace environment. The NPCs have a number of interactions and at least one recorded voice line each. This is to allow users to interact and ‘communicate’ with the other characters in the office. The NPCs in this project have different attributes. They have a set duty to perform. They act as a different colleagues for the user and there is very basic communication function for each character to interact with the user. Though they are only able to introduce themself. While the NPCs are not a substitute for human interaction, they do provide a physical presence of other humanoids in the office and they provided conversation when the participant interacted with them.

After the experiment the participants were asked to answer a post-experiment questionnaire and explain if their preferences had changed based on the experiment.

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2.2 Method discussion

The method for the experiment was a Case Study with elements of Design and Creation. It is hard to put a definite label on any method used, but case study appears the best fit term to describe this project as a whole. In this Section we discuss the viable options for this project and why we chose Case Study.

The original plan for this project was to employ interviews [19] and collect more qualitative data. However, interviews are very time consuming, both for the researchers and, since the intended subjects were female employees in an IT company, for the company that agreed to work with us. In order to avoid the time cost of analysing interviews and risking inconclusive results with a smaller number of participants, as well as minimizing the cost to the hosting company, we opted to not go with interviews. We believe that interviews could be a powerful tool in a more in-depth analysis of individuals and the impact of stress factors in more social-science oriented research. In this study, however, it was of interest to be able to directly compare pre and post experiences, and the interview format, on top of the other disqualifying reasons, did not appear to be best-fit.

If there had been more time, Design and Creation [19] would have been used to a greater effect in this study. It is a good approach to a study such as this, where you can iteratively improve your model. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to employ more iterations, so we limited our use of Design and Creation to the Design and prototyping phase. As the intended result of this study was not to bring a product to market, but rather to identify the potential viability of such a product, we opted to not spend more time than what we deemed necessary on improving the product itself through iterative processes. We were hosted by a company for our study, it was also of interest to minimize the impact this project would have on their daily workflow. An iterative process with several rounds of experiments may have improved the results and viability of the product but that was beyond the scope of this study, which focused on the viability of applying Virtual Reality technology to identify stress factors. A Design and Creation approach could be very beneficial for developing working market products of this type, but for the purpose of this project, we deemed it to be too resource intensive to repeat the process beyond the design phase.

A third approach considered was Action Research [19], an approach that can be used to, similar to Design and Creation, iteratively produce a better project or research statement. Where it differs from Design and Creation, and the primary reason why it did not seem viable for this project, is the involvement of a participant or client in the exploration of solutions. As the intended result of this project was to identify whether VR could a viable tool for identifying environmental stressors, involving the client further in the development process posed a risk on the general viability of the project. The result may have been more applicable to the individual company, but risked being unusable on a broader level. We believe that a form of Action Research could be employed to tailor a working product solution to individual companies and ensure that they get the best possible results out of their product.

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We used a variant of the case study in which we applied steps of Design and Creation to develop our prototype and then applied the prototype in the case study itself. Case studies normally go more in depth into the functions or operations of the case itself than this particular project does, but directly examining the working environment of a only one company and their employees with on-premises testing fits the bill of a case study. This project was hosted by a single company which gave us a particular case to work with and we could delve in immediately as our requirements were sated. In order to test whether our approach was viable, we needed three things; An IT based workplace, as our project intended to specifically look at the viability in an IT workplace. The presence of female employees, as our problem statement stems from the difficulty of retaining female employees in the IT sector and finally the option of deploying hardware and test on the premises. The company we were at not only fulfilled these requirements, but also provided us with the equipment necessary. A live case environment with an IT company gave us the tools to develop theory, methodology, develop the prototype and test the prototype in a single location with optimal participants.

Questionnaires were used to gather information, these questionnaires had a selection of pre-written answers but most of the questions also included an option for the participants to elaborate on their answers or to add an additional option.

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3 Literature Review

The material in this Section is a summary and collection of published (in print or online) works and articles related to the subject area of this study, gathered through a literature review.

3.1 Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is a term describing a technology that encompasses synthetic simulation of real-world scenarios that allow real-time user interaction and provides sensorial stimulation [24]. Virtual Reality (VR) is a rapidly evolving technology that has been successfully used in several areas, including simulation, entertainment, healthcare, learning, education, and gaming.

Virtual Reality technology is progressively being used to help people overcome

their daily issues such as physical pressure and stress [25, 26]. Virtual environment makes it possible to quickly take users from a stressful situation to a personalized environment designed to create positive emotions and well-being [25, 26].

The application possibilities for simulated virtual reality environments are enormous. The main component is its use as a research tool to further understand human behavior. A review of different studies conducted on VR technique shows that this technique offers the potential to create regular human testing and training environments that allow for the control of dynamic 3D stimulus presentations within which interactions, behavioral tracking, and performance recording is possible [26]. The results of various research show “virtual environments (VE’s) can be developed to present simulations that assess and rehabilitate human functional performance under a range of stimulus conditions that are not easily deliverable and controllable in the real world” [26].

One of the main strengths of VR is the assessment of realistic simulated environments where performance can be systematically tested and trained. By designing VEs that not only look like the real world, but also include challenges that require functional behavior, the environmental validity of assessment methods could be improved. “VR offers the option to produce and distribute identical “standard” simulation environments” [26].

Extensive research in VR technology as well as a significant reduction in the cost of development in this area is causing the technology to become more useful. Currently the system is becoming more approachable for different purposes such as physical and psychological research questions [27].

In later years VR technologies have become increasingly viable not only for recreational use, but also development and research. It may be possible to use these technologies to visualize complex problems that existing computer technology are not able to illustrate [28, 29].

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3.2 Women in IT

3.2.1 Current state of women in IT

According to Women in Tech, In 2015, women held 57% of all professional occupations, yet they held only 25% of all computing occupations [2]. Furthermore, even fewer women are found in software development, technology leadership, or other kinds of key roles that have a significant influence on future innovation. 88% of all information technology patents (from 1980–2010) were by male-only innovation teams while only 2% were from female-only invention teams and the remaining 10% by mixed teams. These statistics imply that the technology the world uses today is being created by a relatively homogeneous group of people and that a lot of potentials is being wasted. Innovation is great, and new technology is found every year, but currently, we are not making the best use of the female perspective on future technology.

3.2.2 Problem statement: Women are quitting

Despite increasing efforts to incentivize women to educate themselves within SET-fields and a drive to hire more women with the essential education, the Information Technology (IT) industry is struggling to retain their female employees [17]. There is a need to conduct more research to understand what strategies employers can use to improve the retention rate of their female employees. To develop new strategies for retaining employees, more research into what factors influence why women are leaving in the first place is required. Currently, few women enter the industry; and far too many of those who do, do not stay in the industry [17, 30]. Those with the requisite knowledge, education, and qualifications to be employed in the industry decide to leave and seek employment in other sectors [17, 31]. Even among those who do seek and acquire employment, a significant portion, 41%, exit the field [2, 17, 31, 32]. In contrast to this, only 17% of men exit the field at the same point in their career [2, 17, 32]. Despite equality in terms of qualifications, men hold a significant majority of the positions in the industry [2, 17, 31, 33, 34].

3.2.2.1 Why are women leaving?

According to Women in Tech [2], women leave their IT workplaces due to a number of reasons, such as socioeconomic ones relating to economic reimbursement or not feeling as if one has a connection with their colleagues as well as workplace conditions, lack of access to key creative roles and feeling stalled in their career. Women are reporting that they do not feel supported by their companies despite companies’ claims to the contrary, as well as feeling as if they do not have access to creative roles within the companies.

3.3 Workplace Dissatisfaction:

In this paper we look at workplace dissatisfaction, and more accurately we look at different environmental stressors that may cause dissatisfaction and accelerate the rate at which women quit their positions.

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The IT industry is male-dominated and it can be difficult to find a workplace that embraces female aspects [2, 17, 32]. Workplaces may be designed with productivity in mind, but without introducing or properly considering elements that may appeal to employees. There are factors that may have a compounding effect on workplace dissatisfaction. One of these factors is environmental stressors. Environmental stressors are external elements that, by themselves, may be a minor concern, but combined with other effects may be contributing to discomfort in the workplace [35]. Fortunately, some of these stressors can be mitigated.

3.4 Physical Environmental Stressors

Several Environmental stressors exist in human spaces [6, 7], but not all of these lend themselves to real-time modeling. In the attempt to address the viability of applying Virtual Reality technology in testing these, a number of stressors were chosen based on how easy they would be to model in a VR environment. See 4.1 Findings identified through explorative research for more details.

● _{Lightning. Poor lighting can cause difficulties in concentration, whether the} lighting is too strong or too weak [36]. As Unity offers full control over the lighting of a scene in VR, lighting seemed a good choice.

● Colour. Colours elicit emotions in people and can be seen as pleasant or unpleasant [37]. Unpleasant colours may cause discomfort in the workplace. Unity allowed full control over the colours of an object and allowed us to test various colours in relation to an IT workplace.

● Noise. Resilience to noise levels and the ability to maintain efficiency and not be distracted different between people [38]. By playing a clip of background noise while the participants were interacting with the VR environment, we could, by their reactions and answers to the post-questionnaire, investigate at what point they no longer believed they could work efficiently.

● _{Spacing. An uncomfortable workplace can affect productivity [39]. This can be} due to many factors. In an attempt to model this, we decided to look at preferences in personal space, or crowding. Essentially looking at where people would prefer to sit in relation to their colleagues and available space. As Unity allows for moving objects and simulated people around, we could create a number of different spaces and then allow the participants to pick their preference.

● Greenery. Greenery can assist in making people feel better as well as improving the air quality of locations [36]. While it was not possible to introduce air or smells through our Virtual Reality setup and as such could not investigate the impact of greenery on air quality, it is possible, through unity, to add greenery in an attempt to make a space feel more welcoming.

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4 Result

Based on a literature review and pilot study, a prototype has been created with the purpose to evaluate the viability of using a VR environment, a Virtual Office to be more precise, to identify environmental stressors that are present in real-life, as well as methods to reduce the effect of these. The results of this study, as outlined in the method Section of this paper, are presented below.

4.1 Findings identified through explorative research

With the explorative research step, the intention was to find out what current research has found and how this could be built upon. What was found can be read in Section 3 Literature Review , these findings helped find and categorize the various environmental stressors discussed in this study.

First, Virtual Reality. While a relatively new technology, VR has already been applied to a multitude of problems in an attempt to find new solutions or approaches. We specifically looked at the potential of using a VR environment as a testing facility. Through our research, we found that there had, as of yet, been no real attempts to use Virtual Reality to prototype a physical working environment with the purpose of testing the impact of workplace layout and design on employees to gauge how they would feel about certain elements.

Second, we looked at what the current situation for women in SET fields was and found that a significant portion, roughly 41%, of women who work in these fields end up leaving their companies. The reasoning was split into a number of categories, one of which was workplace dissatisfaction. Workplace dissatisfaction, in turn, was due to several reasons, one of these factors were environmental stressors. There are a lot of environmental stressors (Table 1), ranging from natural disasters to biological reasons such as allergens. L. Deckers describe human responses to stressors in

Motivation: biological, psychological, and environmental [40] , while job stress is covered by M. Jamal [8]. D. Applebaum, S. Fowler, N. Fiedler, and M. Robson cover Odor, Noise, Light and Colour in their study [6]. S. Y. Lee deals with workspace environments and control of objects in ones vicinity [7]. G. A. Bonanno, S. Galea, A. Bucciarelli, and D. Vlahov discuss the effects of disasters and Potentially Traumatic Events (PTE)s in their study on psychological resilience after disasters [41]. S. J. Genuis and K. L. Kelln deal with chemical stressors and toxic buildup in their study of Toxicant exposure and bioaccumulation [42]. The beneficial effects of greenery is covered in Cooper C and Browning B.’s work “Human spaces: The global impact of

biophilic design in the workplace”  [36]. The importance of ergonomics is mentioned by

L. Punnett in “Ergonomic stressors and upper extremity disorders in vehicle manufacturing: cross sectional exposure-response trends” [43]. Finally, biological stressors are mentioned by P. K. Triolo in “Occupational Health Hazards of Hospital Staff Nurses Part II” [44].

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Table 1

List of environmental stressor categories and examples from each category

Type of stressor Examples

Major Disturbance Natural Disasters Major life changes Tragic Events

Climate Excessive heat/cold

Chemical Alcohol

Tobacco Drugs Anthropogenic (of, relating to,

or resulting from the influence of human beings on nature)

Crowding Noise factors

Changes to environment Physical Environment

Too much or not enough light Colours

The location of items in your environment Ergonomic Poor posture (as a result of work environment)

Heavy Labor or exercise Intellectual Stress

Biological Pathogens

Allergens Illness

4.2 Findings and challenges through prototype design and

creation

The design mockups and prototype were created with the gaming engine “Unity” [22]. During the design and creation step, we attempted to design a modern workplace and create a prototype that would match this design. The original design was a concept thought up by Amin Harirchian and implemented in Unity as our model of a modern IT workplace. The choices described below were implemented throughout a number of iterations, but this process was not adequately documented, as such these results are in one section as opposed to split into iterations. We opted for an open floor design (Fig. 4) with big windows (Fig. 2) for natural light an open space desk layout. Instead of designing a closed office with separate rooms and offices, we considered a layout where several teams could work in unison.

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With the intention of testing specific variables, we attempted to create a space where modifying these variables would be simple, but effective. One side of the office is covered by a large wall which allowed us to test colour schemes to great effect. The entire ceiling is covered in light fixtures which allows for testing light levels across the entire office. The open floor solution allowed us to introduce new objects such as large plants to gauge the effect of greenery, whereas the desk design with no dividers allowed us to test adding potted plants to the desks themselves.

Fig. 2: A team of women by the large windows Fig 3: A mixed team and a potted plant at a desk By adding several groups of Non-player characters (NPCs)(Fig. 2, 3), combined with the desk spacing, we were able to create an open and inclusive environment that still offered several options when it came to preferred seating and distance from colleagues.

Noise pollution was tested separate from the Unity solution by playing a sound clip of a noisy office while the participants were in the world.

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The Feedback received after implementing and testing an initial prototype was helpful in efforts to rectify certain omissions. There was a limited physical space to work with in the office at the hosting company and this presented difficulties for how a participant could move about and interact with the virtual office. To solve this issue, a teleporting function (Fig. 7) was implemented which allowed participants to traverse the entirety of the office without having to move far in actual physical space. There was also an issue with introducing participants to the Virtual Reality controls, so an interaction exercise was added by setting a ‘Throwable’ flag to certain objects which allowed participants to not only visually explore the Virtual Office, but also to interact with objects in the office.

_{Fig. 6: Unity Interface}

4.3 Findings through Pilot Study

The purpose of the pilot study was to find out how the participants might interact with the VR environment and what difficulties they might encounter, as well as discovering how to interact with the virtual environment while limiting the disruptive impact such interactions may have on the experience. It was also used to test assumptions that were introduced in the design and creation step. A fresh set of eyes allowed for a clean-slate approach to evaluating the stressors chosen, but the opinions of our participants were only expressed verbally.

The participants were agreed on most points and felt that changes to the lighting and colour were clear and impactful, with the light having more of an impact than the colour schemes, but the colours of the walls were obvious enough to make it distracting. The noise testing was indicated as invasive enough to impact their decision making and focus. Spacing was more of an individual response. The participants had different ideal working spaces, but mentioned that the only thing missing for a choice of preferential working space was a solitary office and that the areas displayed gave different impressions and that some of the spaces would be uncomfortable from a privacy perspective. Both participants preferred plants in the office and said that the lack of greenery was noticeable and gave the office a very unwelcome feeling.

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By adding things like teleportation during the design and creation step (Fig. 7), the limited physical workspace we had for the VR setup ceased to be a problem. Now the participants could move in an effective manner in spite of the limited space in our testing area, but the point based teleport was reported as not feeling natural and that it felt like set scenarios rather than experiencing an office environment.

Through the pilot study, other difficulties were also identified, such as how a participant might interact with the world and also how we, as an outside force, could change elements and add or remove objects in the world. The pilot study proved an invaluable experience where we learned how to use the tools available to us in Unity, as well as it highlighting the parts we needed to improve or flaws in our plan for the experiment. With the help of the data collected, we drafted an instruction sheet on how to use the VR equipment and we learned how to modify the surroundings in an effective and seamless manner. This allowed us to do real-time modifications to elements and objects, something that was necessary for our experiment to work as intended.

Fig. 7: Teleporting function

4.4 Findings through case study experiment

The results of both pre- and post-questionnaires completed by each of the 12 participants were combined with observations made during the simulated virtual reality office and subsequently analyzed through a quantitative process to determine the viability of VR technology for identifying environmental stressors, and methods of reducing the impact of these, on women working in IT workplaces.

All of the 12 participants were female and involved in different position and role in IT industry. Furthermore, all participants were from the same IT company, which is

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located in Malmö, Sweden. Table 2 shows the range of participant’s age. The majority of participants were in the age between 23 to 55 years old.

Table 2

Age distribution of participants

Age Participants in age bracket % of total number of participants

23-29 5 41.67%

30-39 2 16.67%

40-55 4 33.33%

55+ 1 8.33%

About 41.7% of the participants had no previous experience in using Virtual

Reality hardware (Table 3). Around 33.3% had a little previous experience, and nearly 25% had some previous experience.

Table 3

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 3 : You are going to be introduced to a Virtual Reality world. Do you have any previous experience in using Virtual Reality hardware?

Previous Experience Number of participants % of total number of participants

None 5 41.67%

A little 4 33.33%

Some 3 25.00%

4.4.1 Usage of VR to test real-world scenarios

The majority of the participants, 75 percent, believed VR applications could be used to test real-world scenarios before they experienced the virtual office. Around 25 percent of participants believed that it maybe works and none of our participants believed that VR applications could not to be used to test real-world scenarios (Table 4).

Table 4

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 1: Do you believe Virtual Reality applications can be used to test real-world scenarios?

Answer Number of participants % of total number of participants

No 0 0.00%

Yes 9 75.00%

Maybe 3 25.00%

The post-experiment questionnaire result shows that the 25 percent of participants who answered “maybe” to this question, changed their opinion after they experienced the virtual office and after testing. Interestingly, the result shows 100 percent of the participants believed Virtual Reality applications can be used to test real-world scenarios.

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4.4.2 VR Controls: Ease of use

Before participants experienced the VR office, about 75 percent of participants thought they were able to quickly get to grips with VR controls, while 25 percent of participants were not sure about it (Table 5).

Table 5

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 4: Do you think you'll be able to quickly get to grips with the VR controls?

No 0 0.00%

Yes 9 75.00%

Maybe 3 25.00%

After Participants try the VR office, 66.7 percent of participants found the VR controls were easier and more intuitive than their expectations; while 16.7 percent had opposite answer. The rest of the participants had the same feeling and that was what they were expected before the testning (Table 6).

Table 6

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 5: Were the Virtual Reality controls easier and more intuitive than you thought they would be?

No 2 16.67%

Yes 8 66.67%

As expected 2 16.67%

4.4.3 Satisfaction and enjoyment of the VR workplace

A large percentage of the participants (91.7 percent) enjoyed the VR workplace except one person (8.3 percent) who did not enjoy it (Table 7).

Table 7

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 1: Did you enjoy the Virtual Reality workplace?

No 1 8.33%

Yes 11 91.67%

75 percent of the participants would have liked to work in a workplace similar

to the virtual office in reality. The remaining 25 percent of the participants would however not like to work in a workplace similar to the virtual office (Table 8).

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Table 8

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 2 / Question 2: Would you like to work in such a workplace?

No 3 25.00%

Yes 9 75.00%

4.4.4 Physical environmental stressors

In this Section, the results of the physical environmental stressor tests are presented, that is to say the lighting, noise, colour, spacing and greenery tests. There was an interest in understanding different factors that our participants had found stressful, and as such these were collected.

In Figure 8, we present the results of this general collection. 41.7 percent of our participants had come across poorly lit environments, 50 percent had come across noisy environments. Only 8.3 percent had found colour schemes stressful or inhibiting, whereas 41.7 percent had worked in crowded workplaces. 25 percent had found themselves in workplaces they experienced as empty. 58.3 percent of the participants had worked in workplaces that lacked greenery and felt sterile, while 8.3 percent had been in a workplace where there was not any private space where one could hold a confidential conversation.

Fig. 8: Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 4 / Question 1 Question: Have you ever come across environmental factors that have caused you stress or made you feel less productive in the workplace?

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In Table 9, 10 and 11, the results of questions related to identifying stress factors in the post-questionnaire are presented.

Table 9

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 4 / Question 1: Did you, during the Virtual Reality, identify anything that could cause you discomfort or stress if it existed in your real workplace?

No 4 33.33%

Yes 8 66.67%

Table 10

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 4 / Question 2: During the Virtual Reality experiment, were you able to identify anything that could potentially reduce discomfort or stress?

No 5 41.67%

Yes 7 58.33%

Table 11

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 4 / Question 3: During the Virtual Reality experiment, were you able to identify anything that could potentially increase discomfort or stress?

No 5 41.67%

Yes 7 58.33%

4.4.4.1 Lighting

This part presents the results of lighting as one of the physical environmental stressors. Figure 9 and 10 show the conditions of light dimmed and lights on respectively.

Fig. 9: Simulating the workplace in a Lights dimmed Fig. 10: Simulating the workplace in a Lights on The results from the participants before and after the VR testing are presented in Table 12 and Table 13.

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Table 12

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 1: What do you think it would be like in terms of lightning?

Lights off, I work well in the dark 0 0.00%

Lights dimmed, enough to avoid

tripping 0 0.00%

I do not particularly mind 0 0.00%

Lights on 8 66.67%

Lights on and very bright 3 25.00%

Both bright and dimmed,

depending on situation 1 8.33%

Table 13

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 1: Did the Virtual Reality workplace real-time experience change your opinion on what kind of lightning you would prefer?

No 8 66.67%

Yes 4 33.33%

4.4.4.2 Noise levels

This part presents the results of simulated noise levels in the virtual workplace as one of the identified environmental stressors. Accordingly, the Figure 11 shows the pre-experiment questionnaire of this Section. As can be seen around 33.3 percent would prefer working in library levels of silence, while 8.3 percent would prefer to work in a pin-drop silence. From Figure 12 it can be comes out that, around 41.7 percent of participants changed their initial opinion after using VR application.

Fig. 11: Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 4 Question: What do you think it would be like in terms of noise?

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Fig. 12: Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 4 Question: Did the Virtual Reality workplace real-time experience change

your opinion on what kind of noise-level you would prefer?

4.4.4.3 Colour

This part presents the results of changes to the colour-scheme in the virtual workplace as one of the identified environmental stressors. Figure 13 and 14 show two of the colour options tested.

Fig. 13: A wall painted purple Fig. 14: A wall painted bright green

In Table 14, the results of the colour-scheme question in the pre-questionnaire are presented, whereas the post-questionnaire results are presented in Table 15. Fifty percent of the participants choosing bright cool colours as their preference, with the remaining participants spread over several other options. When mapping individual choices on both the pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire, 41.7 percent still preferred bright and cool colours, while one participant changed her mind and chose dark cool colours instead. The majority remained bright and cool colours, with variants of White walls at 25 percent, Dark cool colours at 16.7 percent, Bright warm colours at 16.7 percent.

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Table 14

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 2: What do you think it would be like in terms of colour-schemes?

Answer Number of Participants % of total number of participants

Bright cool colours (Blue, Green, Magenta) 6 50.00%

Dark cool colours (Blue, Green, Magenta) 1 8.33%

Bright warm colours (Red, Orange, Yellow) 1 8.33%

White/Black/Greyscale 2 16.67%

white with accents in light/muted colors like

blue and green 1 8.33%

A warm feeling more important than the

color 1 8.33%

I do not particularly mind 0 0.00%

Table 15

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 2: Did the Virtual Reality workplace real-time experience change your opinion on what kind of colour-schemes you would prefer

No 7 58.33%

Yes 4 33.33%

the colour-schemes was only for the cold light spectra. colours

comes in warm-schemes as well 1 8.33%

4.4.4.4 Greenery

This part presents the results of simulated greenery levels in the virtual workplace as one of the identified environmental stressors. Figure 15 and 16 show the conditions of workplace without plants and workplace with respectively. Figure 17 shows the pre-experiment questionnaire results of this Section. As can be seen 100 percent of the participants would prefer having greenery in the workplace. In Figure 18, we see the post-experiment results. Despite the answers, the overlying preference did not change. The two participants who answered “No” decided that they do not like potted plants on the desks, but still prefer the larger plants in the office over not having plants. There was a preference in non-flowery plants over flowery.

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Fig. 15: Simulating the workplace without plants Fig. 16: Simulating the workplace with plants

Fig. 17: Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 5

Question: What do you think it would be like in terms of greenery? (Plants,flowers) Fig. 18: Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 5

Question: Did the Virtual Reality workplace real-time experience change your opinion on what level of greenery you would prefer?

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4.4.4.5 Spacing

This part presents the results of the spacing test in the virtual workplace as one of the identified environmental stressors. This test was aimed at figuring out how much personal space the participants prefer. Table 16 shows the pre-experiment questionnaire results of this section. Table 17 shows the post-experiment questionnaire results. In the spacing test, 50 percent of the participants stated that they would prefer to work in close proximity with their colleagues when working in a team. Twenty five percent stated that they prefer cubicled working environments, where they can personalize their own space. Around 8.3 percent of the participants stated that they would prefer a personal office where they have control over their domain. 8.3 percent would prefer to be able to move based on the task that is being performed. The final 8.3 percent claimed not to have a preference.

When mapping individual responses, the participants that stated that they would prefer close proximity did not change their answers. About 16.7 percent of the participants who stated a preference for cubicled working environments changed their opinion, 8.3 percent opting for more space and the other 8.3 percent not specifying a new preference. The participant who wanted their own office changed opinion and fell more in line with the 8.3 percent that had previously stated that different tasks require different workspaces.

Table 16

Pre-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 3: What do you think it would be like in terms of spacing?

Answer Number of Participants % of total number of participants

I would prefer working in close proximity with my colleagues for a good social connection. (Close

Team) 6 50.00%

I would prefer a divided

workspace. Each employee has personal space using dividers.

(Cubicled) 3 25.00%

I would prefer working in my own office, where I can control noise, lighting and temperature on a

personal basis. 1 8.33%

Depending on the task i need to perform I need different type of space, sometimes in the team sometimes by myself or in open

space 1 8.33%

I don't particularly mind 1 8.33%

I would prefer a wide open space. Each employee has a lot of space

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Table 17

Post-experiment questionnaire - Section 3 / Question 5: Did the Virtual Reality workplace real-time experience change your opinion on what kind of spacing you would prefer?

No 7 58.33%

Yes 3 25.00%

I need different space depending

on the tasks i need to perform 1 8.33%

I want to be able to look out the window, but I don't want people walking directly behind me as I'm sitting at my desk. I like my desk placed with the side to the

window. 1 8.33%

4.4.5 Stressor identification

In the post-experience questionnaire, two of the questions directly related to identification of elements that could exacerbate or alleviate stress. Table 18 shows the number of participants who were able to identify stress inducing or reducing elements. Eight, 67 percent, of the participants reported that they were able to identify something that could cause them to feel more stress or discomfort if it existed in their real workplace, while seven, 58 percent, of the participants reported that they were able to identify something that could cause them to feel less stress or discomfort it if existed in their real workplace. The participants found different elements to be stressful, but there were some similes.

Table 18

Number of participants who identified stress inducing or stress reducing qualities in VR experiment

Type of stressor Number of participants who believe element could be stress inducing if managed poorly (8 total reporters)

Number of participants who believe element could be stress reducing if managed correctly (7 total reporters)

Colour 4 3

Lighting conditions 2 3

Noise Level 4 (Increased noise levels) 2 (Reduced noise levels)

Spacing/Crowding 3 3

Greenery (plants) 0 3

Viability of Virtual Reality techniques in identifying environmental stressors on female employees in an IT workplace

Examensarbete 15 högskolepoäng, grundnivå

Viability of Virtual Reality techniques in identifying

environmental stressors on female employees in an IT

workplace

Rikard Almgren

Amin Harirchian

Sammanfattning

Abstract

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

1.1 Background and related work

1.2 Definition of problem

1.3 Purpose

1.4 Research Questions

2 Method

2.1 Method description

2.1.1 Exploratory research

2.1.2 Design mockups and prototype

2.1.3 Pilot Study

2.1.4 Case Study Experiment

ii.

2.1.5 Experiment Details

2.2 Method discussion

3 Literature Review

3.1 Virtual Reality

3.2 Women in IT

3.2.1 Current state of women in IT

3.2.2 Problem statement: Women are quitting

3.3 Workplace Dissatisfaction:

3.4 Physical Environmental Stressors

4 Result

4.1 Findings identified through explorative research

4.2 Findings and challenges through prototype design and

creation

4.3 Findings through Pilot Study

4.4 Findings through case study experiment

4.4.1 Usage of VR to test real-world scenarios

4.4.2 VR Controls: Ease of use

4.4.3 Satisfaction and enjoyment of the VR workplace

4.4.4 Physical environmental stressors

4.4.5 Stressor identification