Biophilic Design of Virtual Workplaces: Effect of Animations on User Attention

The biophilic design of virtual workplaces consists of introducing additional natural elements in the virtual environment (VE) with respect to those needed for the main task. It has received increasing attention in recent years, and an increasing number of studies are showing that exposure to biophilic elements in an immersive VE produces positive effects on human well-being. However, in the literature, there are no guidelines about the setting of the different variables of biophilic design in a VE. In this work, we investigated one of these variables, i.e., the effect of the animations of biophilic elements, formulating the following research question: how do animations of biophilic virtual elements affect user attention while performing a working task? We carried out an experiment in which users performed two levels of difficulty of the n-Back cognitive test in three VEs: two identical biophilic VE, one with all static elements and another one in which some of these elements were animated, and an additional empty VE used as a baseline. Performance measurements, eye-tracking measurements, and subjective measurements were collected from 24 users. We found that introducing animations of biophilic elements does not affect user performance in the cognitive task. Furthermore, we found that users’ gaze remains fixed on the main task for more than 94% of the time. However, the use of animations does not bring added value to users in terms of user experience, whereas it causes an increase in perceived distraction and mental effort.