Evaluating the Usability of a VR Team Training Environment Utilizing Extended Reality (XR) Heuristics

Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a transformative tool for training, offering various hardware and software technologies that allow users to interact with synthetic environments to enhance learning outcomes. A systematic heuristic evaluation of a VR team training application was conducted to assess its usability and effectiveness. The application is designed for military trainees to learn effective and adaptive teamwork in a dynamic Casualty Collection Point (CCP) scenario by performing interdependent team member roles. The evaluation was conducted using a combination of virtual reality heuristics developed by Sutcliffe and Gault, as well as the Derby Dozen principles, with severity assessed using Nielsen’s usability severity scale. The evaluation allowed the team to identify several critical usability challenges that significantly impact the system's effectiveness. This highlights that within this crucial step of heuristic assessment and other human-centered evaluation processes, VR training systems may be ineffective or, worse, detrimental to team training. These evaluation methods can help identify such issues early, saving time and resources that can be redirected to improve the project.