The Virtual Reality Empathy Tool

Our idea is to use Virtual Reality (VR) as a tool for empathy and Augmented Reality (AR) as a tool for way-finding. VR helps drive empathy and raise awareness because it gives you total immersion and the ability to literally see the world through another person’s eyes. Through the ‘eyes of another’ we hope to get the people of Melbourne to better accommodate and design a smarter, inclusive city for people living with all abilities. Our vision is that if wayfinding and accessibility is easier for people with disabilities within COM, everybody stands to benefit.

We aim to connect the individual through the immersive experience of VR to wayfinding challenges in the city that people may take for granted. Our vision is to provide an empathy-driven experience for the benefit of all people to understand even the smallest societal barriers that result in someone’s exclusion from the City of Melbourne. Rather than addressing a specific disability group, we are addressing the attitudes and beliefs and experiences of the wider community to connect them with the barriers that people with disability face in their everyday lives.