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Many organizations hesitate to implement VR training due to the perception that it is too complex for their employees. Concerns often center around the supposed steep learning curve of VR interaction and the fear that most workers, especially those without gaming or tech experience, will struggle to get comfortable. In reality, VR does not need to be difficult, and most modern VR training programs include intuitive controls and built-in tutorials designed for quick, easy acclimation.
Levels of complexity in VR interaction can be carefully structured, beginning with passive participation and gradually advancing to more interactive tasks. This article outlines a staged approach to VR training, helping employees transition smoothly from their first experience to mastering virtual tasks. Rather than focusing on launching a full VR training program, the goal here is to address how to get employees comfortable with VR itself, even if they are absolute beginners.
Why Acclimating to Advanced VR Training Software Matters
VR headsets and controls are unfamiliar territory for many employees, especially those not exposed to gaming or digital tech in their personal lives. This unfamiliarity can foster hesitancy, anxiety about making mistakes, and confusion about how to navigate VR environments. Introducing VR training gradually helps minimize drop-off, frustration, and resistance that can arise from overwhelming users early on.
A smooth onboarding experience translates directly to higher engagement, stronger retention, and better training results. Research and case studies have shown that poor user acclimation often results in negative feedback and lackluster performance, not due to the training content, but because users felt unprepared or discouraged. Building user confidence and familiarity is essential for reaping the full benefits of virtual reality training.
Why Skipping Stages Sometimes Overwhelms New VR Users
When users are thrown into a complex VR simulation without gradual acclimation, they can become overwhelmed, confused, or disengaged. This often leads to poor outcomes and misplaced blame on the technology or content itself.
If your workforce includes older employees who haven’t grown up with digital technology, it’s worth putting extra focus on intuitive controls and clear onboarding.
While a built-in tutorial is ideal, many first-time users still avoid VR due to a fear of complexity or frustration with unclear interactions. When users don’t know what to do, even small obstacles can create hesitation or resistance.
The solution to this is to either start with a lower level complexity, or start with a higher one with intuitive design that can work for all types of employees, no matter what level of technical competency they have.
VR Controls & Tutorials: What Users Need to Know
Most VR training for beginners includes short, interactive VR tutorials that teach users the fundamental controls and actions. Common elements include:
- Pointing: Using a controller or hand to aim at objects.
- Basic interaction: Trigger or button presses to select or manipulate items.
- Movement: Joystick navigation or teleportation, which can be point-and-click (aim and jump to a spot), dash teleport (quick fade to new location), or moving between pre-defined hotspots.
These controls are purposely kept simple to ensure anyone can pick up VR basics in under five minutes. Users receive clear visual feedback (e.g., highlighting interactive items) and step-by-step guidance, so no prior gaming experience is needed. Tutorials are embedded within most VR platforms, offering immediate, risk-free practice before the actual training begins.
Levels of Complexity in VR Training Programs
Start with the simplest form of VR: just put the headset on. This could be as basic as a 360-degree video, but with ideally should include all 6 degrees of freedom to avoid inducing any motion sickness.
The next level is what’s often called “Point and Click VR”. It uses basic controls like gaze or controller-based selection, allowing users to interact without replicating complex hand movements. This stage is easy to learn and doesn’t require mimicking real-world actions.
These early stages are highly effective for engagement, information retention, and keeping development costs low.
The most advanced type involves full physical interaction, reaching, grabbing, turning, or operating objects as you would in real life. This is the most immersive and realistic but can also need explaining for newer user.
While it’s the hardest to grasp at first, this stage offers the best results for physical process training, muscle memory, behavioral change, and long-term knowledge retention.
Stage 1: Automated Experience / Passive VR – No Inputs Required
The initial stage of difficulty in a VR program to ease employees into VR is passive exposure, which requires no user input past starting the VR application, merely wearing the headset and observing the environment.
- No buttons or interaction
- Experience launches automatically, letting the user simply look around
This builds confidence by allowing users to get comfortable with the headset, visuals, and natural head-tracking without fear of making mistakes or getting stuck somewhere in the experience. This is the most budget friendly VR experience since it essentially involves no unique user interaction.
Imagine it like you put the VR headset on and you had the complete visual perspective of a character from your favorite animated film.
It could be Donkey from Shrek, or a minion from despicable me, but essentially you would see all the things they could see based on where they were pre-animated to move, and hear the things they’d say. You have their experience virtually.
This level of complexity can be a gentle introduction that sets the foundation for more interactive training experiences by reducing initial anxiety and building interest.
A good example of this type of training from our own portfolio, is the driver training we developed for James Hardie.
Stage 1 Complexity Example
As you can see from this example, the user is essentially inside of a 3D animation but they don’t actually have to press anything.
- Fully automated and passive experience
- Only user input is head turning which is optional, but adds immersion and requires no thought which isn’t natural
- The non-vr equivalent would be sitting down and watching a film from start to finish
To avoid the need of a tutorial where users need to click the start button, this was designed so someone with experience could start the VR app and it would automatically reset the experience every time the headset was taken off or on.
This enabled James Hardie to let their users rotate different distracted driving experiences without anything more than sitting down and taking in turns to use the headset. Check out the full distracted driving awareness VR experience case study.
Stage 2: Basic Interaction – Point and Click VR
The next level introduces what we call point and click VR. Here, interaction remains straightforward, and is barely a jump in complexity at all from the previous stage, making it still a perfectly good place to start VR training from:
- Point a controller or finger at objects or characters; a thin laser beam shows what the user is targeting.
- Interactive items are clearly highlighted.
- A single button press activates actions (animations, voiceovers, changes) which progress the experience.
- Often introduces teleportation movement methods
This method eliminates complex hand motions or simulated tool usage, focusing instead on guided exploration and simple decision-making. Step-by-step prompts ensure users never feel lost, and a simple point-and-click or button press can trigger animations or the next step in the VR experience.
A great example from our portfolio would be Schneider National’s VR Driver Training.
Stage 2 Complexity Example
You can see that employees gain agency without risk of being overwhelmed, making the experience accessible and confidence-boosting.
- Very similar to the James Hardie example, but uses buttons the user can actually click to affect the experience
- A non-vr equivalent of complexity would be interactive e-learning where you watch a video and click a multiple choice to choose a different outcome.
- Though it’s not in this example, VR movement via teleportation would also use point and click controls.
- We developed this for our client Schneider National
Stage 3: Full Interaction – Real-World Physical Motions
The most advanced stage allows users to perform real-world physical tasks within VR, closely mimicking the actions required in their actual roles. This level may include:
- Turning valves, operating tools, or handling simulated equipment
- Following detailed, realistic procedures in the correct sequence
- Tracking movement precision, timing, and providing real-time feedback
While this is usually as advanced as a VR simulation will get, these types of simulations usually have a VR tutorial, and users who are confident in their ability to learn the tech quickly can even start from here.
Such scenarios are suited for safety-critical operations, compliance procedures, and advanced technical training where muscle memory can have a big impact. These modules offer the highest skill retention and performance benefits.
A final example would be our hands-on lockout tagout training. This VR program, among other examples we’ve developed like Nutrien’s ammonia training or USAF’s TMQ53 assembly training – include more hands-on interactions of a complete process.
Stage 3 Complexity Example
As shown in the video, the user actually grabs the virtual objects that feel as if they physically exist in the user’s vr experience, this is hands-on interaction.
Our training was built with intuitive design, knowing that it can sometimes be confusing for first-time VR users to realize how they can interact with the world.
When the VR software is designed based on the assumption that a user is completely new to VR, it allows for the highest level of accessibility for all users.
- Includes a full tutorial at the start before starting the training
- Intuitive UI like floating labels/captions saying “grab me”, “attach here” or “turn me” makes it easy for users to copy the natural movements they use in real life in the VR software
- Objects are highlighted when they need interaction, to boost the learning process
- Uses hand-tracking so controls are easier to understand
- Even though this is on the higher level of complexity, it’s perfect for first-time VR users
- Was developed for two clients, Daikin and Kinross, and designed for easy repurposing for new clients so it can be sold as a semi off-the-shelf solution
Final Recommendations
VR training is not inherently hard, but it is unfamiliar.
- First-time VR users should always start with VR tutorials before going into the main VR experiences.
- If you struggle to understand VR controls, progress from more basic VR experiences like point and click VR, or if you still find it too complex, go for a passive VR experience that automates all user interaction other looking around.
- VR training software should always be designed with accessibility in mind, so that users can start comfortably from any level of complexity without a problem.
- This guide is mainly for if a workforce is less technically competent, so that VR training can become more accessible for those types of users, but many employees can start from any level depending on their comfortability.
Always match the complexity of the VR interaction, and the training assignments, to employees’ comfort levels, not just organizational needs. If you need a higher level of complexity from the get-go, make sure you’re using a good VR training provider like SHIIFT Training to have a product designed for all levels of technical competence.
Often times users will start at a higher level of complexity, with a badly designed product (un-intuitive design, lack of effective VR tutorial, etc), which becomes the downfall of the training. With the right structure, even employees who have never worn a headset can become confident, productive VR learners, unlocking the rich potential of hands-on VR training.
While this article outlines three levels of VR training complexity, it’s not a strict progression. You don’t have to start at the lowest level, it’s perfectly valid to begin with a full-motion, hands-on simulation if the experience is well designed.
What matters most is intuitive interaction, clear guidance, and a smooth introduction. If the controls make sense, the objectives are clear, and the user feels supported, even first-time users can succeed with higher-complexity VR.
Now that you fully understand how to avoid overwhelming new users with complex VR, you should check out this more in-depth guide if you’re looking to fully launch VR training for your company.
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