Exploring the impact of virtual reality on museum experiences: visitor immersion and experience consequences

Virtual Reality (VR) is used in cultural heritage to create immersive experiences that enhance visitor’s engagement. Mobile-VR provides a semi-immersive experience, while wearable-VR offers multi-modal interaction for a fully-immersive experience. This study aims to develop mobile-VR and wearable-VR based virtual frameworks for the Le-Corbusier Museum of Chandigarh, India, to measure the impact of VR on visitors’ experiences. This research evaluated immersion levels and motion sickness by comparing participants' experiences and analyzed the effectiveness of the VR systems in the museum's virtual environment. A total of 80 participants took part in the research, divided into two equal groups. They experienced VR tours on mobile and wearable devices. Immersion Tendency Questionnaire (ITQ) used to measure their immersion level and the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) used to evaluate their motion sickness after the VR experience. Based on the data collected from the participants, the user experience was assessed, and the effectiveness of the designed VR framework was evaluated using statistical analysis. The results identified a statistically significant difference between the designed VR systems in user experiences, as evaluated using the t-test (F = 3.49, df = 78.0, p < 0.001) for experience consequences. The study found that motion sickness was significantly reduced in wearable-VR compared to mobile-VR experiences. Additionally, there was a significant impact on immersion scores (F = − 3.39, df = 78.0, p < 0.001) when comparing the virtual tours of mobile-VR and wearable-VR. The evaluated results indicated that the wearable-VR system more effectively immerses the audience. These findings suggest that the wearable-VR is better at reducing motion sickness and improving immersion than mobile-VR.