How to Design for Life’s Hardest Moments: An XR Case Study

How gesture, pacing, worldbuilding and embodied interaction can turn sensitive psychological research into something participants live, not simply watch.

How do you design participation around one of the most difficult experiences in human life?

Nana Lou is an award-winning interactive VR animation from in which the participant plays a spirit accompanying a grandmother through her final moments. Rather than simply watching the story unfold, the participant has a role within it – using their presence and actions to accompany Nana Lou on her journey.

The experience draws on research and training around end-of-life care and grief psychology. But translating that research into an immersive experience creates a very different design challenge: how do you turn emotionally delicate material into actions, interactions and moments a participant can actually live?

In this WXO Campfire, Nana Lou writer and director Isabelle Andreani will take us inside the design process.

Through an exclusive case study, Isabelle will explore how the team built gesture, pacing and presence directly into the roleplay, and how decisions around narrative, interaction and technology helped create an emotional journey without turning the participant into a passive observer.

The result is not only a useful XR case study but also a wider exploration of how experience designers can give audiences meaningful agency when working with complex or sensitive subject matter.

What you’ll leave with

• A practical approach to emotional pacing – including how performative pacing can work alongside narrative story beats
• Ways to use worldbuilding to control narrative pacing, rather than treating environment and story as separate elements
• Principles for interacting with animated characters while maintaining emotional and narrative coherence
• An example of embodied, diegetic interaction, using head tracking and hand tracking rather than separating the interface from the experience
• A clearer understanding of designing participation around sensitive material, through the specific challenge of end-of-life care
• A detailed XR case study showing how research, narrative, interaction and technology can be developed as one experience

Who should attend?

• Creators, producers and designers working with XR and immersive technology
• Narrative and interaction designers exploring more meaningful forms of participation
• Writers and directors translating linear stories into interactive environments
• Creative technologists working with hand tracking, head tracking and embodied interfaces
• Experience designers interested in emotional pacing and participant agency
• Anyone exploring how immersive experiences can approach difficult or sensitive subjects responsibly

About Isabelle Andreani

Isabelle Andreani is a writer and director specialising in new media, interactive storytelling and immersive technologies.

She has worked in interactive content and digital experiences for more than 25 years and wrote and directed Nana Lou, an interactive animated VR experience produced by Small Creative, Skill Lab and France Télévisions. The project has been presented internationally, including as part of Venice Immersive.

Alongside her creative work, Isabelle supports creators, producers, agencies and institutions developing digital formats.

Originally trained as an engineer and researcher in physics, she later completed a Master’s degree in New Technology Management at HEC – Télécom ParisTech. Her career has subsequently crossed software development, marketing, entrepreneurship and production, and she also teaches new forms of narrative at university.

How to watch this Experience Briefing:

• Experience Briefings are available for WXO members only
• To join the WXO, please head to our Application page
• The WXO is a global home for the leaders, shapers and doers in the Experience Economy
• As a member, you’ll get live access to Experience Briefings like this one plus unlock an on demand library of over 100 recordings

Timings:

Campfire #1 is suitable for those in the APAC region or Europe, but everyone is welcome! Here’s when we kick off in your time zone:

• London: 9:55 – 11:00 (BST)
• Paris: 10:55 – 12:00 (CEST)
• Dubai: 12:55 – 14:00 (GST)
• Mumbai: 14:25 – 15:00 (IST)
• Shanghai / Singapore: 16:55 – 18:00 (CST/SGT)
• Tokyo: 17:55 – 19:00 (JST)
• Sydney: 18:55 – 20:00 (AEST)
• Auckland: 20:55 – 22:00 (NZST)