Augmenting Embodied Sensemaking Using VR-Enabled New and Unusual Perspectives

Since the launch of the first Oculus Developer Kit in 2013, consumer and commercial adoption of VR and AR technology has arrived beyond the early-adopter stage. This widespread availability of VR and AR headsets raises challenging and exciting questions for researchers in the field of embodied interaction: how do we design embodied interactions in VR? Can we improve (social) sensemaking beyond the natural body? What new opportunities for embodied interaction have presented themselves, thanks to this new technology, and how can we best use them? To address these questions, my research focuses on designing new interactions with VR systems that go beyond the (digital) gaming context, especially including tangible interactions from new and unusual perspectives, made possible by the new developments in the field of VR technologies. In my thesis, I aspire to present a framework of embodied sensemaking informed by new and unusual perspectives, enabled by virtual reality technology, developed in a Research through Design process.