Visualization firm and software developer Theia Interactive has launched Claria with an early access license. Claria is a set of biometric tracking tools capable of analysing and reporting a person’s physical reactions while in VR. Built exclusively for HP’s Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition headset, Claria tracks six key physical responses to help designers, marketers, researchers and creators understand exactly how a person feels about a given product or experience.
Claria reads data from the biosensors in the Reverb G2 Omnicept Edition headset to track heart rate, heart rate variability, cognitive load, eye vector, pupillometry and saccade. Pupillometry measures pupil size and reactivity, and saccade refers to rapid eye movements. Though other biometric tools can track one or two of these metrics, Claria captures a comprehensive look at a person’s physical responses, and then generates datasets that can be used for various practical purposes.
For example, product designers can determine what element in their product is or isn’t appealing or comfortable to users, while a marketer can understand what attracts attention within a publicity campaign. Psychologists can accurately determine the onset of stress in a given situation. Decisions that generally rely on subjective interpretation can now be made using empirical data.
“Claria takes some of the guesswork out of designing products and campaigns,” said Bill Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of Theia Interactive. “We can put someone in VR and know exactly what about the experience we build that attracts them, excites them or overwhelms them, to arrive at better designs through more informed decisions.”
The biometric results recorded by Claria can be played back or viewed as heat maps and graphs to help users better understand the information. Using Claria’s UI, designers can set up multiple configurations to test geometry and materials in ways that speed up design decisions. Designed to work with virtual environments, objects and characters created in Unreal Engine, users can efficiently test high-fidelity visual representations of design iterations.
As Theia’s team specialises in collaboration for visualisation, Claria has multiple-user capabilities that can bring different parties together inside a project. Users and creators can connect from anywhere in the world, using voice chat and built-in VR tools to make changes to their work in real-time, based on the reactions observed.
“Knowing a person’s true, unfiltered reaction means that anyone designing products or trying to attract people has an advantage over those relying on traditional methods,” said Jay Fraser, senior manager, XR GTM & developer relations at HP. “HP's Reverb G2 Omnicept has the tools to collect and interpret that data, and Claria makes it easy for anyone to apply the results to industry applications.”
Claria is available as a perpetual license now through Theia's early access program. The full access launch is expected by the end of 2021. https://theia.io/
