Use cases for Virtual Reality on the Web

Unless you have been living under a rock the past year or so, you likely have heard of Virtual Reality based projects ranging from Oculus Rift to Sony's Playstation VR to Google's Cardboard offering and Microsoft's holoLens Augmented Reality system.

Most of these offerings have been showcased around Video Gaming, but in the last few Months Google has actually started to present the idea of embedding 360 degree images and videos into websites so that they can be viewed with or without the use of a dedicated headset.

How this is done can be explained through a dedicated white paper on how to embed and deploy this technology, but as a Web Designer I believe the more fascinating aspect of this emerging element of Web Design is how it can be deployed to better Inertial Zen Designs' clients interaction with their consumer base.

Two interesting ideas instantly come to mind, showcasing a company's actual place of business location wise or products being offered in one's place of business.

The first, showcasing one's business location, can be easily compared to a person using a service like Google Earth's Street View to see the inside of a business from a first person point of view. 

 Since the image used is basically a panoramic 360 degree capture of the place of business, it's even possible to brand this image with a company's brand or logo, effectively turning the logo as a center point and a Website's header image in one photo.

Perhaps the more exciting use case for a business is the ability to use VR View as a tool that showcases their in store product. Imagine if your customer was able to see an item in your online store and think 

"Oh I like that, but what would it look at from all angles? If I could see it from all angles I most likely would buy it"

Well, with VR View, that question is no longer one that has to go unanswered, as now they can tap on the image, slide their phone, with VR supported browser technology, into a dedicated VR helmet and they get a fully immersive 360 degree view of the item AND the ability to click one touch screen button to add the item to their online cart for checkout.

Google's VR View protocols are in their their early stages, with most articles having been released around the end of March 2016, but this new addition to the World Wide Web promises to show some very unique potential for the future of presenting information on the Internet.

A preview of how Google's VR View protocols work can be checked out at Google's Blog