Lenia Margariti, PhD

VR/AR Training

VR/AR for Health and Safety Training and Customer Engagement
2018-2019

Duration: 5 months

Role: Digital Transformation Analyst / UX Designer (COSMOTE / DT)

Team: IT D&I - Software Engineers, Marketing, Health and Safety Team, Enneas (contractor)

Methods: Agile, Service Design, Product Innovation, Requirements gathering, Prototyping for AR/VR, User Experience Evaluation, Usability Testing

Impact: Designed and validated immersive training experiences that improved engagement with safety procedures while reducing operational training costs. The project demonstrated how VR could be used to safely simulate high-risk field scenarios and support scalable workforce onboarding. Accelerated growth through POCs design, development and evaluation, informing future product/service development.

Overview

As part of the COSMOTE IT Innovation Team, I designed and prototyped immersive VR and AR concepts to support product innovation, stakeholder alignment, and early-stage validation of new business opportunities.

One of the most successful initiatives was a VR health and safety training programme for telecommunications field technicians. Developed in collaboration with Enneas, the training aimed to improve engagement with mandatory safety procedures while reducing the costs and logistical challenges associated with traditional classroom-based training.



Above: Material for introducing and evaluating the VR training.

Above: User experiencing VR training in internal event. Part of user experience testing.

The Challenge

Health and safety training for field technicians relied heavily on in-person instruction, requiring dedicated trainers, physical equipment, and significant organisational effort.

The challenge was to create a training experience that would:

  • Improve engagement and knowledge retention.
  • Allow technicians to safely experience high-risk scenarios.
  • Reduce training delivery costs.
  • Scale across geographically distributed teams.

My Role

I led the discovery and early design phases of the project before contractor involvement and continued to support product development throughout implementation.

My responsibilities included:

  • Gathering requirements from field technicians and health & safety stakeholders.
  • Designing and prototyping VR interaction concepts and training scenarios.
  • Facilitating stakeholder alignment around product requirements.
  • Collaborating with external partners during implementation.
  • Designing and refining user interface and interaction elements.
  • Conducting usability testing and iterative design evaluations.

I also acted as a liaison between internal stakeholders and the development partner, ensuring business requirements and user needs were reflected in the final product.

Design Approach

To support early decision-making, I developed a series of VR prototypes and interaction concepts that allowed stakeholders to experience and evaluate potential training scenarios before committing to full-scale development.

The final training experience simulated realistic fieldwork activities, including:

  • Correct use of safety equipment.
  • Ladder positioning and usage.
  • Cable maintenance and repair tasks.
  • Environmental conditions such as weather and lighting changes.
  • Consequences of unsafe behaviours through realistic fall simulations.

The immersive format enabled technicians to practise procedures and experience risks in a safe and controlled environment.

Evaluation & Iteration

Throughout development, I conducted user testing sessions and design reviews with internal stakeholders and end users.

Feedback informed improvements to interaction design, usability, onboarding, and overall training flow, helping ensure the final experience was both effective and accessible to new field technicians.



Above: VR training advertisment material by Enneas.

Outcomes

The VR training was successfully deployed and received positive feedback from technicians, who described the experience as significantly more engaging than traditional training approaches.

The project delivered benefits across both user experience and business outcomes:

  • Increased engagement with health and safety training.
  • Enabled safe simulation of high-risk scenarios.
  • Reduced training delivery costs and logistical overhead.
  • Supported scalable onboarding of new field technicians.
  • Demonstrated the value of immersive technologies for enterprise learning.

Beyond This Project

Alongside the VR safety training, I contributed to a range of AR and VR innovation projects focused on customer engagement and emerging digital experiences.

These included:

  • Smart-home VR demonstrations.
  • AR features for COSMOTE smart home mobile app.
  • In-store augmented reality games and promotions.
  • AR product catalogues and gamified retail experiences.
  • Consultancy and design support for B2B AR/VR partnerships.

I worked with Aframe and Unity (for Oculus Rift, Gear VR and Google VR) to prototype lightweight VR/AR Proof of Concepts for various use cases. The purpose of these prototypes was to communicate, discuss and evaluate interaction concepts and product ideas with internal and external stakeholders prior to committing to collaborations with external partners - e.g. startups -for full-scale end-to-end development of the envisioned product.

Through these projects, I helped evaluate how immersive technologies could create business value across training, retail, and customer experience contexts.



Above: Connectivity VR demo scene

Above: Short clip from Connectivity VR demo, illustrating connection between smart home features with the central hub.