The following is a condensed version of my dissertation. If you would like to see my full report, please send me an email at raveena.s.jain@gmail.com and let me know whether you are a potential employer or student looking to read it.

To understand what immersion means, specifically in physical spaces, and how design choices and interactive technology impacts the levels and feelings of immersion in physical environments.

• [O1] To establish a definition of immersion for physical environments and to build upon that definition to classify different levels of immersion.
• [O2] To form a set of Design Principles and Guidelines that could be used to create immersive physical environments that integrate the use of interactive technology.
  • [O2.1] Design Principles: high-level and focusing on the overall, key elements needed to establish an immersive environment and increase the quality and level of immersion.
  • [O2.2] Design Guidelines: detailed ways of incorporating interactive technology to create an immersive environment and accomplish the corresponding Design Principle.

• [RQ1] Considering existing literature studying physical and virtual immersive environments, how can immersion be defined?
  • [RQ1.1] How are levels of immersion, for physical environments, established, differentiated, and defined?
• [RQ2] What qualities of physical environments impact the feelings of immersion within those environments?
  • [RQ2.1] How does the use of technology affect the qualities that make a physical environment immersive?
• [RQ3] How can interactive technology be used to increase feelings of immersion in physical environments?

NVivo, Otter, Zotero, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive), Remote Interview Moderation (Microsoft Teams, Discord, Facebook Messenger) and Recording (QuickTime) Software

Immersion is not a new or unpopular idea. However, definitions vary depending on context; for example, are discussions about a Virtual Reality game or a Theme Park. There are also a number of existing models of immersion, with different concepts that may overlap or feed into one another. Despite these differences, it is accepted that there are different levels of immersion. However, there is no consensus on how those levels are distinguished. Some common themes deal with engagement of the senses, narrative, presence, and creating a "world."

Interactive elements are common in immersive spaces. A popular example is the wands in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a Universal Theme Park) that allow guests to "perform" spells.

Google Scholar and ACM were used to find the literature. Studies that were too general and/or looked at relevant environments or technology, like VR, but did not tie the research back to immersion or the effects of interactivity were rejected. Each saved paper was read and quotes were taken that pertained to definitions [RQ1], levels [RQ1.1], and qualities of immersion/immersive environments and interactive technology [RQ2/RQ3]. Quotes that defined immersion or interactivity, mentioned or implied levels of immersion, touched on something the authors thought contributed to or affected immersion or interactivity, and/or quotes that mentioned the effects of interactive technology on users or the environment were considered relevant. For any literature that looked to quantify immersion (i.e. questionnaires), because my research was looking for qualities of immersion, notes were taken on what aspects of immersion the questions pointed to rather than any qualitative results.

Reddit and DISboards were used to source the Forum Text Content. Four specific Subreddits were parsed – r/Themepark, r/disneyparks, r/universalstudios, and r/london (was chosen to keep the scope related to immersive experiences manageable). The first three Subreddits were more general so comments would encompass any of the Universal and/or Disney Parks worldwide. In order to keep with the sites Terms and Conditions, a member of City, University of London’s ethics committee stated the use of direct quotes was acceptable and, to maintain some level of anonymity, no usernames or direct links were cited. The goal was to find comments not just saying ‘I find X ride interactive’ or ‘I find Y land immersive,’ but to use comments that included some sort of reasoning as to why those feelings were present.

Six remote, semi-structured interviews, each lasting roughly 45 minutes, were conducted. Potential participants completed a Screener and chosen participants were sent Participant Information Sheets and Informed Consent Forms to sign. Participants had to meet the following requirements:

• Aged 18 or older.
• Fluent or working proficiency in English.
• Have visited any of the Disney and/or Universal Theme Parks within 2 months of a potentially scheduled interview OR have visited any of the Disney and/or Universal Theme Parks within the past 1 year and have made at least 11 visits in total by either going at least once a year or being a local.
• Have used at least one of the following interactive technologies on their last visit:
  • Disney: MagicBand+, Play Disney Parks App (the Star Wars Data Pad and DuckTales World Showcase Adventure), Spiderman WEB Adventure/Web Slingers, Star Wars Smugglers Run, Toy Story Mania, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin/Astro Blasters, Monster’s Inc. Ride and Go Seek, Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor, Turtle Talk with Crush, Galactic Starcruiser.
  • Universal: Harry Potter Wands, Power Up Bands, Men In Black: Alien Attack, Mario Kart: Koopa/Bowser’s Challenge.

While recruitment was attempted on Facebook, DISBoards, Instagram, and LinkedIn, all participants were found through Reddit and personal contacts. A script was used for the interviews and was informed by the Literatre Review, especially the Immersive Experience Questionnaire [IEQ]. The script focused on:

• What drew participants to Theme Parks.
• If participants saw Theme Parks as immersive environments.
• How the interactive technology within Theme Parks contributed to or detracted from feelings of immersion.

This research took a “content analysis” approach and the main method of qualitative analysis was Thematic Analysis where common themes, using an inductive approach, were pulled out from each data source as the data determined what codes were relevant. Most codes were established by the Literature but, as new data was read and new trends formed, new codes were added from both other sources. No element of data was restricted to a single parent code; this helped inform where codes thematically overlapped. Ideas within different codes that supported each other and/or resulted in similar qualities of immersion were combined into an overarching theme.

The data was analyzed and the following list of trends was found. This is formatted as the overarching theme and a short description.

• "The Disney Bubble" - Removal from the Outside World: Guests are transported to a new world that makes them forget about the real one they just came from.
• Theming: This is what made a world believable to guests.
• Story/Narrative: Guests should feel as though they are a part of the story the world is telling.
• Details: These contribute to the story and world and encourage exploration.
• Realism and Suspension of Disbelief: Social Realism is “how likely” the detail in the world would “occur in real life;” Perceptual Realism is not about believing the world you were in could actually exist in real life, but that everything about the environment you entered – the buildings, rides, food, employees, interactions, etc. – was realistic to the world being created.
• Fields of View: What guests can and cannot see both influence immersion, noting that immersion was decreased if a field of view included details that were not “relevant” to the world.
• What Makes a Guest: Existing attachment to an intellectual property, such as being a fan of Star Wars, and nostalgia can positively factor into the emotions a guest feels. The social impact of other guests can be both positive and negative; for example, other guests caused frustrations on a ride where guests were seen as separate from the game while, on a different ride, everyone intentionally had an impact on the overall experience making the influence of others positive.
• Performance: Environments themselves were considered a stage and guests and employees were part of the show.
• Personalization, Control, and Responding to the Guest: Guests should be placed at the centre of the story where outcomes are directly influenced by their actions.
• Resulting Engagement and Involvement: Tied to the previous point, feelings of involvement connected guests to the environment, increasing immersion.
• Ways of Interacting: While there are several forms of interactions, regardless of the type, they must be well integrated into the environment. Interactions also increased cognitive engagement, which helped guests suspend disbelief; balance was still needed to limit physical and mental workload.
• The Use of Screens: Screens were more effective when they were well integrated into the environment, for example alongside physical effects, and when they were reactive to guests' actions.
• Barriers and Breakdowns: Interactions not feeling natural, an experience going wrong, or a guest being distracted from the space they were in all had the potential to ruin the immersion of the environment; for Theme Parks this included devices breaking or difficulties in planning.
• Physical and Mental Effects and Feelings: Engaging multiple senses, heightened emotions (positive or negative like joy or fear), feelings of nostalgia, or connections to Intellectual Property that guests already had positively impacted immersion.
• Variety, Loyalty, and Newness: Repeat visits negatively effected immersion, but seemingly mostly not because of frequency or the idea of always wanting to see something new, but due to a guest knowing “what to expect” and a decreasing emotional response.

Interactive technology can actively bring guests into the world by creating both social and perceptual realism; it can bring to life interactions that could not "realistically" or "normally" exist. Interactive technology affects immersion through the visibility of its feedback/outputs and creating variation through those outputs. It also has the potential to make the guests feel as though they are in control.

However, if the interactive technology is not intuitive to use, it can raise barriers to immersion instead of lowering them. This is also true of one of the most widely used forms of interactive technology, smartphones. For one participant, using his smartphone made him feel less immersed as he brought an element of "the real world into [the] fake world” he was supposedly transported to. However, for other participants, the use of their smartphones facilitated their day, helping them become more immersed in the world around them.

These are examples of 2 types of Theme Park guests to show how varying the qualities of guests who visit and/or are interested in immersive environments may be.

To be immersed in a physical environment is to be transported to a new reality that encompasses the visitor, both physically and mentally, though the use of physical objects and interactions that engage all the senses.

Low

• Not all-encompassing; the visitor does not believe that the environment could exist as a realistic world of its own.
• Closest to the reality the visitor just came from; they are still frequently reminded of that “outside world,” both physically and mentally, but will see a few elements that start to build a new reality.
• Minimal sensory input via limited details and interactions; the environment does not have the potential to engage all the senses.

Medium

• All-encompassing feelings in most of the space; a majority of the elements help visitors feel as if the environment could exist as a realistic world of its own.
• Occasionally reminded of the reality the visitor just came from; this could be from external distractions and/or a lack of details within the space that attract attention.
• Frequent sensory input via an increased number of details and interactions; the environment has the potential to engage multiple senses at once.

High

• Constantly encompassed by the new reality; the visitor always believes they are in an environment that could exist as a realistic world of its own.
• Physically and mentally visitors only see and think of elements related to the reality they have entered.
• At least one sense that draws the visitor into the environment is always engaged; multiple senses will frequently be engaged at once via an appropriate number of details and interactions.