The main challenge for the third concept was to create more motivation and meaningful interactions for the participant. At the same time, the challenge of removing potentially bias-triggering details had not been resolved.

I started thinking of differently shaped environments as alternatives to the landscape of The forest. One such environment is the labyrinth, which guides the participant and provides motivation in the form of the quest to find the centre or the exit. I was also inspired by haunted houses in fairgrounds, where the participant is transported along dark corridors and surprised by jump-scares, screams and other stimulations.

The White Lodge in “Twin Peaks” (1990) can be seen as a combination of the two, being an environment where you cannot see everything, and the participant keeps wondering what it is all about.

However, although these user journeys would provide a quest and a sense of mystery and would probably be more motivating as they are more directional for the participant, I thought that an experience communicating an important ethical issue should have more urgency. I also wanted to remove the sense of linearity – of being led. This made me think about obstacle courses, where participants move from challenge to challenge. These challenges can all be hugely different, and there is no intention of a story-arc or linear story dictating what comes next.

Instead, each post is understood to offer a challenging interaction that will be demanding. The outcome of completing the course is the individual experience of the participant. This resembled the resulting reflection I wish to create – that the participant should ideally leave the VR experience reflecting on issues of othering and CBOW after having been challenged themselves. I envisaged this as being a complete removal of storytelling, replacing it with game play and a total focus on the participant’s emotional experience. The user journey itself is the central element of the VR experience.