CREATING A VR WIND TUNNEL
EXPERIENCE
FIND OUT HOW
In a
nutshell
I've been lucky enough to work many digital projects for McLaren of the last 5 years. I've designed mobile applications, configurators, websites and more. One of the briefs I received requested a digital experience for an exclusive car reveal to 15 high profile journalists at a press event. The car wasn't available, so provided the next best thing, but then we turned things up to 11.
Immersive learning
A key story of the McLaren 720s is airflow. It’s designer will tell you that it’s organic muscle-like form was sculpted by air in order to provide a level of aerodynamics never seen before. On hearing this, we knew we needed an immersive execution to do it justice. Science tells us that people are 5x more likely to absorb information if they experience it first hand. So we chose to drop our journalists into the heart of the action, using virtual reality.
Considering the context
The VR application and journey had to be designed with context in mind. Many of our target users had not used or even seen a VR headset before so it was imported that the experience was inspiring but not overwhelming. After lots of research into VR best practices and several design iterations, we arrived at a journey that was defined by it's users as intuitive, breath-taking and memorable. A custom built wind tunnel environment, with the ability to emit smoke particles to interact with airflow first hand, but also explore other key stories.
So what was the impact?
