7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. The summer after my senior year of high school my family took a vacation where we traveled through Italy and Greece. It was amazing, but everytime we walked through old ruins I would always think "I wish I could see what it used to look like". I believe that there is a huge market for augmented and virtual reality in the tourism market. Virtual reality means that people could "visit" historic sites they would not be able to get to otherwise. Augmented reality means people could see what ancient areas used to look like in order to get a better understanding of that people and culture.

2. People who wish to travel to various sites but can not physically do there for some reason.
The Who: People who wish to travel but physically can not
The What: Cannot physically visit locations but might be able to using VR
The Why: Travel can be very expensive and time consuming and many people can not afford it.

3. Interviews

• Interview #1 - The first person I interviewed was one of my roomates, he has never traveled outside of the United States. He was very interested in this technology. Having heard of stories about places abroad from friends but not being able to go due to a lack of funds is not a good feeling he said. This could possibly allow him to see all the cool places he's heard about.
  
• Interview #2 - The second person I interviewed was a disabled person who must use a wheelchair. Travel has gotten easier for her over the years especially within the United States and western European countries. However many countries that she would like to visit do not have the accessibility for disabled people that we have here. This makes traveling to those countries a stressful en devour.
  
• Interview #3 - The third person I interviewed is my cousin, a senior in highschool. He has traveled with his family growing up but as he begins to reach financial independence worries he will no longer be able to afford travel. He was interested but said it would never compare to the real thing. "There is no way to simulate the majesty of watching a herd of zebras run", according to him. This has reinforced my idea it is best to focus on places and not events for our VR travel.
  
• Interview #4 - The fourth person i interviewed was my grandfather. As he is getting older he is not as mobile as before, making travel much harder for him. He was interested in the VR aspect and really wanted a chance to try that out. However he was less interested in the travel aspect saying "its not real". He did point out the opportunities in education for this product.
  
• Interview #5 - The final person I interviewed was my aunt who used to be a teacher at a Montessori school. Montessori schools are known for their non traditional approach to learning and trying to make it "fun" for kids. She said this technology would be perfect for their schools. It would be like taking the students on a field trip to anywhere in the world.

What I learned from my interviews is there is interest in using VR to simulate travel. However due to many people not having computers with the ability to run VR using older video game technology would allow a wider market to be reached. Also people who wish to visit historic sites in their "travel" like the idea because they want to see something. People who travel for experiences (going to the beach etc) like the idea less because even VR cannot simulate many experiences. The education market could potentially be huge.