What Makes First Steps Users Rave About Virtual Reality? An Explorative Qualitative Study of Consumers' First VR Experience.

First experiences can make or break a new product. If consumers love it, they rave about the product and encourage others to try it. If they don’t, they move on and discourage others from trying. Considering the slow consumer adoption of VR, we explored user attitudes, expectations, and behaviors during their first VR experience using qualitative methods. At first, we interviewed ten participants and studied their feelings about VR before, during, and after the Oculus First Steps tutorial. Despite initial concerns, participants formed a positive attitude toward VR. Six participants reacted enthusiastically to First Step’s robot, which prompted us to conduct an online investigation of consumer discussions. Thematic analysis of users’ posts and responses to the First Step’s robot on Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube revealed strong positive emotions, which impacted users’ attitudes and increased their likelihood of recommending VR to others. Implications for content developers and future studies is discussed.