Inspiring Pro-Environmental Action Through VR Storytelling

A narrative-driven VR experience that empowers young tourists to care for marine life by connecting emotion, agency, and environmental education.

My Role

UX Designer & Researcher

Co-led ideation, storyboarding, prototyping, and user testing
Created interaction flows and evaluated emotional & behavioral impact
Integrated multisensory cues (visuals, sound, narrative voice)

Co-led ideation, storyboarding, prototyping, and user testing
Created interaction flows and evaluated emotional & behavioral impact
Integrated multisensory cues (visuals, sound, narrative voice)

TOOLS

Figma

Miro

Canvas

Mozilla Hub

SKILLS

Problem Solving

User Testing

Problem Solving

XR Design

Storytelling

✏️ Brief

Tourism is one of the leading contributors to plastic waste in marine environments. In this project, we designed an immersive VR journey for young UK tourists that uses storytelling, character interaction, and emotional decision-making to encourage pro-environmental behaviors in a playful yet impactful way.

🎯 Design Goal

Create an engaging and emotionally resonant VR experience that raises awareness about marine pollution and encourages users to take action, such as picking up litter, reflecting on their impact, and sharing their journey with others.

Support UN Goal 14: Help reduce ocean plastic by 2025.

Raise Awareness: Show tourists the impact of plastic on marine life.
Promote Eco-Tourism: Encourage eco-friendly behaviours.
Foster Empathy: Build emotional connections with marine life through VR.
Drive Change: Inspire sustainable actions with interactive learning.

UN Goals- Under the Water

14.1 By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution indicators.

14.1 By 2025, significantly reduce all marine pollution, especially from land-based sources like debris and nutrients.

visit website here 🔗

🎠 Background

🐢 Meet Tao: The Sea Turtle Guide

Users take the role of Harry, a curious UK tourist exploring a beach resort. Tao, a friendly sea turtle, guides them through scenes where they must make choices—to litter or to clean up, to act or to ignore. These decisions shape how the story unfolds, influencing emotional cues and outcomes.

📖 Narrative Journey Highlights

Hotel Lobby: Introduction to Tao and exploration options

Beach Scene: Grab a drink, drop litter, take a photo—or clean up
Consequence Room: Witness the impact of pollution on marine life
Ending: Join others in a collaborative cleanup, ending on a hopeful note

Each scene was carefully crafted with environmental lighting, ambient sound, and emotional triggers to align with user psychology and cognition theories.

Task

Designing immersive VR environments that effectively communicate the consequences of pollution.
Developing interactive elements that engage users and encourage sustainable actions.
Conducting user research and testing to evaluate emotional engagement and effectiveness.
Iterating on the experience based on feedback and usability insights.

Designing immersive VR environments that effectively communicate the consequences of pollution.
Developing interactive elements that engage users and encourage sustainable actions.
Conducting user research and testing to evaluate emotional engagement and effectiveness.
Iterating on the experience based on feedback and usability insights.

Designing immersive VR environments that effectively communicate the consequences of pollution.
Developing interactive elements that engage users and encourage sustainable actions.
Conducting user research and testing to evaluate emotional engagement and effectiveness.
Iterating on the experience based on feedback and usability insights.

Research

Why UN Goal 14- Life Below Water?

Tourists often overlook their environmental impact due to a lack of awareness.

Tourism contributes heavily to marine pollution, especially plastic waste.
Sustainability initiatives struggle to engage tourists effectively, with weak environmental regulations.

Tourists often overlook their environmental impact due to a lack of awareness.

Tourism contributes heavily to marine pollution, especially plastic waste.
Sustainability initiatives struggle to engage tourists effectively, with weak environmental regulations.

Tourists often overlook their environmental impact due to a lack of awareness.

Tourism contributes heavily to marine pollution, especially plastic waste.
Sustainability initiatives struggle to engage tourists effectively, with weak environmental regulations.

80%

Marine pollution

comes from Plastics

80%

Marine pollution

comes from Plastics

8 million tons

Plastic

enter Oceans Yearly

8 million tons

Plastic

enter Oceans Yearly

39kg

Microplastics

are consumed per person each year.

39kg

Microplastics

are consumed per person each year.

Over 100,000

Marine Animals

die annually due to plastic pollution,

Over 100,000

Marine Animals

die annually due to plastic pollution,

Persona

Harry is a typical young UK student: environmentally aware yet uninformed about his substantial impact, exemplifying tourists who frequently neglect their environmental responsibilities.

RESEARCH: Why chose UK young tourists?

Less litter-reducing intentions
Future-oriented and opened to new ideas
Travel motives: personal attachment, escape, relaxation, culture and adventure

Less litter-reducing intentions
Future-oriented and opened to new ideas
Travel motives: personal attachment, escape, relaxation, culture and adventure

Less litter-reducing intentions
Future-oriented and opened to new ideas
Travel motives: personal attachment, escape, relaxation, culture and adventure

UX Vision Statement

💡 Solutions

Interactive VR Scenarios: Engage users with real-world problems and promote sustainable actions.

Autonomous Exploration: Users navigate the virtual world freely, fostering discovery-based learning.
Emotional Impact: Create empathy by simulating pollution’s effect on marine life, such as hermit crabs interacting with trash.
Educational Engagement: Incorporate interactive objects to connect actions in VR with real-world sustainable practices.

Interactive VR Scenarios: Engage users with real-world problems and promote sustainable actions.

Autonomous Exploration: Users navigate the virtual world freely, fostering discovery-based learning.
Emotional Impact: Create empathy by simulating pollution’s effect on marine life, such as hermit crabs interacting with trash.
Educational Engagement: Incorporate interactive objects to connect actions in VR with real-world sustainable practices.

Interactive Scenarios: Engage users with real-world challenges.

Free Exploration: Foster learning through discovery.
Emotional Impact: Show pollution’s effect on marine life.
Educational Engagement: Link VR actions to real-world sustainability.

Interactive VR

Engage users with real-world problems

Promote sustainable actions

Emotional Effects

Simulate pollution impact on marine life

Trigger empathy and other emotional responses

Educational Engagement

Incorporate interactive objects

Connect actionable with sustainable practices

Design Consideration

🌊 Design Principles

Inspiration: Encourage users to envision a sustainable future by presenting challenges that require long-term thinking.

Engagement: Utilise interactive VR objects to deepen learning and make each interaction educational and enjoyable.
Exploration: Allow users to explore environments autonomously, fostering discovery-based learning.

Inspiration: Encourage users to envision a sustainable future by presenting challenges that require long-term thinking.

Engagement: Utilise interactive VR objects to deepen learning and make each interaction educational and enjoyable.
Exploration: Allow users to explore environments autonomously, fostering discovery-based learning.

Inspiration: Challenge users to think long-term for a sustainable future.

Engagement: Use interactive VR to make learning fun and impactful.
Exploration: Enable free exploration to promote discovery-based learning.

🪸 VR Opportunities

Awe & Nature Connection: Replicate stunning underwater environments to evoke awe and raise consciousness.

Ecological Experience Learning (EEL): Directly simulate ecosystem interactions to show the impact of human actions on marine life.
Pro-environmental Behaviour: Provide actionable experiences that translate VR lessons into real-world eco-friendly actions.

Awe & Nature Connection: Replicate stunning underwater environments to evoke awe and raise consciousness.

Ecological Experience Learning (EEL): Directly simulate ecosystem interactions to show the impact of human actions on marine life.
Pro-environmental Behaviour: Provide actionable experiences that translate VR lessons into real-world eco-friendly actions.

Awe & Connection: Evoke awe with stunning underwater scenes.
Ecological Learning: Simulate ecosystems to show human impact.
Pro-environmental Action: Turn VR lessons into real-world eco-friendly behaviour.
4o

📊 High-fidelity prototype

🏖️ IMMERSE IN OUR VIRTUAL WORLD 🐚

🧪 User Testing & Key Findings

Quantitative (PANAS & PQ)

Presence scores improved after iteration (4.16 → higher)
Engagement increased through stronger visual cues & guided interaction
Users preferred real-time voiceover to pre-recorded scripts

Qualitative Insights

Desired Emotional Responses

“That's very sad. [seeing seagulls]...eating rubbish.” - P2

“After seeing the tourists picking up the trash, It wasn't like a guilt trip sort of experience.” - P2

Matching Mental Models

“I'm tempted to almost walk forward. I forget that I'm in an actual room."- P2

“The interactions are simple but it makes you feel like you're actually doing something"

- P4

“The interactions are simple but it makes you feel like you're actually doing something"

- P4

🚀 Key Outcomes

👤 User Value

Created a deeply immersive and emotionally impactful VR experience that helped tourists understand their environmental footprint, especially regarding plastic pollution in marine environments.

Evoked emotional empathy toward ocean pollution through storytelling and interactive design.

Promoted behavior change through empathy, using storytelling and interactive design to connect users emotionally with marine life.

Encouraged users to reflect on their environmental impact, promoting behavior change.

🏢 Business Value

Demonstrated how immersive technologies can drive sustainable tourism, offering value to organizations or governments focused on environmental education, tourism innovation, or public awareness campaigns.

Showcased the potential of immersive VR in environmental education and sustainable tourism.

Created a prototype that could scale into environmental exhibits or eco-tourism packages, potentially attracting sponsorships or partnerships.

Built a scalable concept that can be extended to public awareness campaigns and eco-tourism initiatives.

🌱 Personal Value

Strengthened your XR and storytelling skills by designing engaging, purpose-driven content.

Enhanced XR storytelling skills by designing emotionally engaging experiences.

Gained experience in user testing and iteration with emotional metrics, deepening your research and design-thinking abilities in immersive media.

Applied emotional testing methods to improve research and deepen user insights.

💭 Reflection

This project showed the potential of ecological experiential learning in VR. By combining storytelling, decision-making, and emotional design, we influenced awareness and sparked conversations about sustainable tourism. It also demonstrated how immersive media can shift behavior and inspire real-world change.

This project deepened my understanding of multi-sensory UX design, highlighting how olfactory elements can enrich VR experiences across healthcare, education, and entertainment.

VR Design Techniques: Mastered creating immersive VR environments, adapting from traditional 2D to address unique spatial and ethical considerations.

User Safety in VR: Learned to integrate safety measures against potential side effects like motion sickness and eye strain.
Emotional Engagement: Developed skills to enhance emotional connections and immersion in VR, prioritising user engagement.

Continue Viewing

Enhancing VR Immersion through Scent

Exploring how congruent and non-congruent smells influence user presence and emotion in virtual reality.

Built in Framer

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Created by Wei Hsin 2024

Built in Framer

•

Created by Wei Hsin 2024

Built in Framer

•

Created by Wei Hsin 2024