VR: A Journey to a World of Peace and Harmony for Mothers
The inspiration for my school project came from the story of a friend, who recently became a mother.
This time in a woman's life, which is generally expected to be filled with joy and happiness only, also has its “behind the scenes”. Moments of emotions, anxiety, stress, a mix of feelings, unknown situations, and in some cases, visiting the hospital for the very first time. A moment when you, as a mother, want to calm down and refocus, but it's difficult to do so.
From the tech side, my inspiration came from the mobile app Kogito, which was created in the Czech Republic to help women, specifically new mothers, with anxiety and post-partum depression situations.
We all have our own happy place, a place where we feel safe and find our positive vibes. Whether it's a mountain view, the seaside, your local bookstore, or a lavender field in Provence. How about jumping into the place for a minute and taking a couple of deep breaths? Is it far away? VR technology can help us a bit.
Breathing is one of the most effective relaxation techniques, so I decided to combine VR, the so-called safe place approach and the breathing relaxation technique. And explore, if and how the combination will work.
The process began with validating the idea – I wanted to be sure that my idea would find its audience. I interviewed my friend who recently became a mother. My intention was to find out which moments were the most challenging for her as a new mother and in which moments she would need to calm down and relax the most, when would she consider a relaxation technique with combination with tech, especially in VR, which is not typical approach in this situations.
My insight was that after giving birth, it is difficult to find time for this type of technology. However, she would welcome the solution when she was waiting for hours to give birth. I was also curious about what her perspective of the safe place look like in detail.
I started with the desk research – I was exploring the VR applications with focus on meditation, breathe techniques. I was looking for elements, information, UI they used. To have deeper experience, I tried some of the techniques they offered personally. My focus was also on the resources about combination of VR and motherhood – what are the experiences so far.
The next step was a mood board. I wanted to create a first draft of what the environment should look like. Together with the information gathered from the interview, I used AI(Leonardo AI), Pinterest and own drafts to help me with the ideation phase.
The storyboard helped me to better understand, what steps and action will the user do in the proposed VR app and what not to forget. I also add some challenges (e.g. the proposed scenes may be subjective and may not be a picture of a safe space for the user; the exercise needs to be short to avoid motion sickness).
The idea was to bring a person into a welcome room/hall where the user can find the instructions and select the place where they would like to be teleported. Once in the selected environment, the breathing exercise will begin.
The user will be guided by small bubbles (representing the user's breath). User will also hear sound of breathing, all combined with calming music/sounds. This will navigate the user in speed of breathing. In case the user will need more time and wish to stay longer, there will be an option to add extra time to spend in the place and breathe if needed.
Of course, I faced a lot of challenges – as this is my very first project and prototype in VR, I hit my own limits and VR building skills many times. On the other hand, each time it motivated me to explore more features – learning by doing. ShapesXR has really well prepared tutorials for newbies.
With great support from our tutors Markéta Kučerová and Vojto Brůža, I was able to create the first prototype, which will help me in the next phase: testing and adjusting in subsequent iterations.
Momentary escape may not solve the complex situation the mother (or any other user) can face. However it may give them power to calm down for a while and help to find energy for dealing with difficult moments.
As a disclosure, I would like to add that the idea has not been discussed with a psychologist nor medical professional (yet).
Last but not least – breathing techniques has a real impact on our health and can help us in many ways. I would encourage you to take 70 seconds right now and enjoy the experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEqZthCaMpo
