Enhancing Earthquake Preparedness and Awareness: A Virtual Reality Serious Game for Residential Interiors

This study focuses on developing a beta version Virtual Reality (VR) serious game (SG) to minimize earthquake hazards and evacuations caused by non-structural factors for residential interiors. The study aims to enhance earthquake preparedness and awareness for preventing and reducing deaths, injuries, and property loss. The game provides a beta version single-player VR experience to players/participants and offers two separate scenarios, a living room and a sleeping room within a home environment. Both scenarios have experience sets that include correct and incorrect situations to demonstrate what should (and should not) be done for interior space organization, selection and layout of non-structural elements such as furniture, equipment, and lighting elements in residential interiors. The study consists of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Visual techniques, participant observation, informal conservations, and surveys were used to obtain data. Annotated diagrams, content analysis, and frequency analysis were used for analyzing the data. The study findings show that earthquake preparedness and awareness can be raised through VR serious games. The VR tools and environments can be used to simulate earthquake situations and the human behaviors of these situations, and VR technology can provide an interactive and inclusive learning-teaching environment in the interior space organization, design and implementation of non-structural elements in residential interiors. This study, which draws attention to the importance of learning through experience, will contribute theoretically and practically to educators, design students, society, and policymakers regarding residential interiors in case of disasters such as earthquakes.