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How is AR Helping Businesses Train Their Employees?
When you want to buy a shirt, you go to stores and try on the shirts you like. When you want to buy a house, you go to visit flats or apartments and choose the one where you can see yourself living. Or what if you are out somewhere and see a coffee table you like and want to buy, but instead of just imagining it, you want to see how it will actually look in your room?
Now, what if you can do all this in the comfort of your own home without having to go anywhere? Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications can make this possible. These sibling technologies AR and VR are the latest trends that have everyone talking and excited.
With this fantastic growth, the AR market is expected to hit $70-$75 billion in revenue by 2023. You may be wondering how augmented reality can help to train employees? This article is here to answer your question.
Before we begin to explore ways AR and VR development solutions are transforming training with immersive experiences, you must ask yourself, “Do I really know what AR is?” If the answer is yes, great! If not, here is a brief introduction to augmented reality.
What is Augmented Reality (AR)?
Let us discuss this with an example. We are all well aware of the mobile game Pokémon GO. It has over 1 billion downloads. In this game, we can see virtual Pokémon on our phone screens with a real-world background. This is what augmented reality is.
It is a blend of real and virtual (computer-generated) worlds. We have to provide a real-world entity with the help of our phone’s camera, and this technology adds or “augments” some more virtual layers to it.
Technically speaking, augmented reality or AR is an interactive experience of a real-world environment. It enhances real-world objects by adding computer-generated perpetual information.
Now that you are well aware of the technology, let us move into our next subject, the use of augmented reality.
4 Ways Augmented Reality is Transforming the Training Industry
Augmented reality is changing the game, not just in classrooms or eCommerce, but in the online training industry as a whole.
AR mobile apps deliver real-time information fixated on physical objects that simplifies the process of understanding and consuming information.
Here are four ways AR can do this:
1. AR applications are helping train medical staff.
In medical science, augmented reality is playing a vital role in staff training and has worked its way into one of the most sensible professions (the practice of medicine). In the future, more doctors will be trained with augmented and mixed reality rather than training by actually dissecting human bodies. And it seems legitimate.
One example of this would be AccuVein. AccuVein is an AR-based imaging application that helps doctors get a skin-deep view of their patient’s veins. Doesn’t this sound amazing? Well, in the near future, it will be a common thing to see whenever you visit a doctor.
Such training methods will also help in scaling medical training for a larger number of students. And the in-depth details provided by this training will help bring the quality and efficiency of medical services to a whole new level.
If you own a business that deals with the medical industry, you must hire AR app developers to come up with an application that no medical provider can resist. Investing in future technologies is practically required investing at this point in time.
2. Augmented reality helps in manufacturing training.
In almost every business in the manufacturing industry, the training is given to employees in a workshop format. None of the employees gets it right the first time, which contributes to waste generation. These training workshops can also incur high costs for the company.
Now imagine, with the help of VR and AR apps, that trainees can get hands-on training of manufacturing that goes into more detail. The perks are lesser waste and a one-time investment (i.e., paying a consulting fee and getting your personalized training software built).
At the BMW Group Production Academy, BMW has started training its employees with the help of AR goggles. These goggles provide visualization of engine assembly, and trainees can interact with these visuals. Another cool factor about these goggles is they can quickly get feedback from trainers and help trainees perform better.
3. Augmented reality has changed the education industry.
With AR and VR apps in classroom education, the education game has changed. For instance, kindergarten kids are the toughest to handle. What if schools were able to use this technology to help these kids interact and learn?
Similarly, for high school kids, some concepts are difficult to remember. What if you, as a business, come up with an interactive mobile app solution that has AR incorporated into it? It will help the students and will also lift your business.
Currently, 88 percent of mid-sized companies are already using augmented reality in their work. Have you been left behind?
4. Augmented reality helps in integrating gamification and virtual training features.
According to neuroscience research, AR experiences deliver almost double (i.e., 1.9 times) the levels of engagement of their non-AR equivalents. The memory retention is nearly 3 times.
AR keeps the user at the center of the experience. It uses our physical location as its primary component, extending our version of reality with digital content. It started with enhancing virtual events with ideas taken from games such as Pokémon GO. This gaming-inspired approach also can transform training into augmented gamified learning that can be deployed as virtual events. This just enhances the ways we can learn and helps trainees gain knowledge and retain information better.
Final Words
Augmented reality does extensive job training in diverse fields, such as the ones mentioned above. AR and VR-based mobile applications will become the modes of educating future generations.
Training, until recently, was accomplished through texts, visuals, and elements like images. With the innovations and changing trends in augmented reality, interactive learning has come a long way. If you own a business and want to train your employees with the help of advanced technologies, try getting in touch with an AR development company. Only an expert can help you with the best solutions. Cheers!