In this blog, team member Ellie explores what behaviour change is, why it’s important, and how immersive, interactive video can help encourage it.
What is behaviour change?
Behavioural change, as the name suggests, is when an individual’s behaviour changes in response to an experience or new information. A lot of the time in businesses and learning environments, this is the main goal of our content. We may want our audience to visit our website and buy a certain product or service. We may want them to learn, retain and then be able to apply information about a topic. Or we may even want them to make a social change such as cycling to work more often.
In this article, we explain how creating more immersive, interactive content is a proven method for encouraging behavioural change.
Why immersive content helps
If you’re an organisation or individual wanting to discuss or spread awareness about an issue, your end goal is likely to change your audience’s behaviour. This could be within your organisation or outside of it.
Let’s say you’re creating a video to teach people about the consequences of driving without a seatbelt. The aim is not only for them to understand why it’s dangerous, but also to retain this information. This way they can apply what they’ve learned to future situations.
Therefore, teaching is a lot more than just giving someone information. If we want someone to really learn and engage, rather than just observe, there’s an added level of interaction you need to work in. The question is, what’s the best way to create immersive content? With so many people now working remotely, it’s been tricky to find ways to engage people. Especially without splashing out on lots of expensive software and/or hardware.
Interactive video and behaviour change
Now, we may be a teeny bit biased, but here at Near-Life we’re pretty sure interactive videos and courses are the perfect way to provoke behaviour change in your audience. With our platform, you can build immersion into your content in countless ways. You can work with images, videos, VR and 360-degree film. From there you can add additional gamification such as scoring, inventory, and notebook.
And let us just clarify – this technology isn’t designed so that only specialists or those with a lot of tech experience can use it. In fact, Near-Life’s aim is to provide a service that allows everyone to create VR and interactive content. Even if you just have a PowerPoint presentation or slides on Canva, Near-Life enables you to turn these into interactive videos, bringing your learning content to life.
The proof – immersive content boosts retention
Making your courses and videos immersive in this way is a great way to make your content more engaging. Therefore it’s more likely to provoke the desired behaviour change in your audience. And we aren’t just saying this out of nowhere. Ofcom, the media regulator in the UK, carried out some research. This showed knowledge retention could be up to as high as 90% greater with immersive style content. On top of this, 70% of employees say that corporate technology and training tools fall short when compared to personal technology. Creating more gamified, interactive and immersive content is therefore a great way to ensure your content is having maximum impact.
Want to know more?
If you’d like to learn more about why Near-Life is the right tool for creating interactive videos, please go ahead and book a demo.
Or, if you’re already confident it’s right for you, you can get started right away with a free trial.