Athletes understand that narratives affect their injury experience, both those that they create and those that exist in culture/society Athletes explore one or more of the narratives and understand concepts from them Athletes can reflect on their own injury experiences in relation to those concepts Measurement: Interview via user test Measure the number of narratives users explore and time in each scene Review reflections from their injury experiences

To what extent can VR assist with helping runners construct their own sports injury narratives How effective is VR as a method of arts-based knowledge transfer in communicating sports injury narratives?

The narratives that are ‘out there’ are powerful resources in scaffolding how athletes come to make sense of their experiences The type of story an injured athlete tells will shape how they think, feel, and behave in relation to their injury experiences Stories can enable/constrain individuals in different ways Multiplicity of injury narratives offers athletes greater opportunity and flexibility in framing and re-framing their injury experiences as necessary Dr Ciara Everard - “Working with injured athletes: Sports injury narratives” [Powerpoint Presentation]

There will be an intro explaining what to expect and the context of the experience (that it is based on the Merry-Go-Round narrative from Storying Sports Injury Experiences of Elite Track Athletes: A Narrative Analysis) Intro will explain how users should interact with the scene and get them to test out the interaction of grabbing a 3D object to play audio and progress the story Users will continue into the Merry-Go-Round narrative scene The narrator will deliver the key sports psychology information that underpins the athlete’s experience of the Merry-Go-Round. This will be backed up with an emotive athlete story that is triggered when the user picks up a virtual object relating to the athlete’s story. The virtual object will be animated to reinforce points or themes within the athlete’s story. This repeats for 8 iterations.

At home, a solo experience

There will be a voiceover guide that explains concepts and narrative elements together and multiple different athlete voices that tell short parts of their stories (<30sec)

We have worked on a first draft of interactions for athlete stories and objects that trigger them: https://coda.io/@jonjhiggins/the-resilience-narrative/merry-go-round-athlete-story-interactions-36 I will work on sketching these out next and we will iterate on these.

VR or MR? This will be a Virtual Reality experience as in our user testing all 3 participants found the mixed reality pass-through distracting, with no real benefit. Virtual Reality will help increase immersion and we will have more control over what to focus the user's attention on, as well as more compelling lighting and graphics options. Users tend to move more freely around space in Mixed Reality, but the experience needs to work seated for injured athletes, so this is less relevant for this experience.

The environment will be a liminal space that allows the virtual objects relating to athlete stories to take centre stage. The liminal space can change in relation to the story (e.g. it may turn dark and rain in the space, or brighten to white) The aesthetic of the virtual objects is currently unknown, we will work with placeholders to start with (e.g. there will be a 3D object that looks like a running shoe, but aesthetically it may not match up with elements in the scene) and refine the aesthetic over time.

Is the user listening? Can other things keep them listening? Break into smaller sections Edit down Reinforce Text Visuals Interactions SFX What brings athlete stories to life? Text Visuals Interactions - hands SFX What reinforces knowledge? Asking user questions

Intro to experience and narrative concept User is presented with names of available sports injury narratives and high-level info, they choose which to explore User explores a sports injury narrative They are suggested to explore a contrasting narrative or reflect on their experience Section to reflect on their experience Outro

Hardware: Oculus Quest 2 and Quest Pro standalone Software: Unity with Oculus SDK

Experience will be standalone, downloadable from app store

The user explores sports injury narratives in a virtual environment. The user connects to athlete stories by using their hands to interact with virtual objects that represent the athletes story. Basic version There will be an intro to explain what the experience is about and to get the user used to hand-tracked interactions, so they know what to expect and how to use the experience. They will proceed to the Merry-Go-Round scene. This will follow the narrative structure of the Merry-Go-Round YouTube video (narrator voiceover explains concept from injury narrative then it is backed up by athlete story voiceover). In this experience athlete stories will be triggered by the user interacting (via their hands) with virtual objects that appear in front of the user when the narrator voiceover has finished a section. For example, a virtual shoe will appear and when the user handles the shoe the athlete's story is played. We aim for this to make a physical-emotional connection between the user handling an object and hearing the athlete's story. There will be 6-8 athlete stories - Outro can direct users to the Sports Injury website to view the other injury narratives Extended version / reach goals As above, but instead of going straight to Merry-Go-Round they can choose between that scene Resilience or Longevity At the end of a injury narrative scene the user can view a contrasting narrative The narrator asks the user questions relating to the scene to aid their comprehension, user can respond via voice