Efficacy Assessments of Virtual Reality Systems for Immersive Consumer Testing—Two Case Studies With Tortilla Chip Evaluations

In sensory science, the use of immersive technologies has gained popularity for their ability to restore relevant contextual factors during consumer testing and overcome the low ecological validity of controlled laboratory environments. Despite this, there is scant literature evaluating the effectiveness of immersive technologies in facilitating virtual product evaluation experiences; this is especially true with virtual reality (VR) headsets and the unique technical challenges associated with this technology. To fill this gap, we assessed virtual presence, system usability, engagement, and ease of task completion, in subjects using two iterations of a VR application (controllers or hand tracking) designed to address the major limitations of current systems. Results revealed that both systems exceeded the benchmark usability score of 68. System 1 (controllers) performed better for interactions with the virtual tablet interface to answer questions, whereas interactions with the food objects were easier using System 2 (hand tracking). Participants also experienced a high sense of virtual presence using both systems. When measured in System 2, a high level of subject engagement during the immersive product evaluations was observed. These studies indicate that collecting both quantitative and qualitative feedback on VR systems can provide useful insights and directions for application optimization to ensure valid investigation of context effects in future research.