Research and evidence behind pre familiarisation

Research & Evidence Behind Pre-Familiarisation

Virtual familiarisation — letting someone explore a space online before they visit it in person — is increasingly recognised as more than a convenience. It is emerging as a legitimate accessibility and reasonable adjustment tool.

Legal opinion: Equality Act reasonable adjustment

Doughty Street Chambers has given a legal opinion identifying virtual familiarisation as an auxiliary aid likely to meet the Equality Act reasonable adjustment duty for many service providers and public bodies.

What the evidence shows

• Peer-reviewed research supports pre-familiarisation as a way to reduce anxiety and increase confidence in unfamiliar environments, particularly for people with autism, PTSD, dementia, or other hidden or physical conditions.
• Case studies and client feedback from organisations including Lumo Trains, Charlton Park Academy/CENMAC, Theatre Royal Bath and PK Porthcurno show measurable increases in engagement, enquiries, and customer confidence after introducing virtual tours.
• Site-wide usage data across Ocean 3D’s tours shows sustained year-on-year growth in active users, reflecting genuine public demand for this kind of pre-visit information — not just a marketing add-on.

Beyond accessibility

While reasonable adjustment is the clearest legal driver, the same tours have proven value in HR induction, staff training, facilities management, and event planning — anywhere that reducing uncertainty about a physical space saves time or improves confidence.

The evidence base is continuing to grow, but peer-reviewed research, official guidance, legal opinion, client-published evidence and delivered projects all point in the same practical direction: for some people, being able to see and understand an unfamiliar place in advance can reduce uncertainty and support more confident participation.

This page explains the evidence we rely on, what it does and does not prove, and how we describe it responsibly.

Why unfamiliar places matter

For many people, arriving somewhere unfamiliar is not just inconvenient. It can create uncertainty about entrances, routes, toilets, seating, sensory conditions, quiet areas, help points and what will happen next.

That uncertainty may affect autistic people, disabled people, anxious visitors, patients, pupils, passengers, families and many others.

Pre-familiarisation gives people a chance to explore key spaces in advance, at their own pace, using technology they already have.

We do not claim that every virtual tour will remove anxiety or solve every access barrier. A tour is one practical tool that can sit alongside good access information, staff support, physical adjustments and inclusive service design.

Education and school transition

A peer-reviewed study published in Education and Information Technologies examined the effect of a virtual school tour on preschool children starting school for the first time.

The study involved 359 children and 18 kindergarten teachers. Children in the treatment group viewed a 6 to 10 minute interactive 360° virtual tour of their school before the school year began. Compared with the control group, the treatment group showed significantly lower school avoidance, higher school liking and greater co-operative participation. There was no significant difference for self-directiveness.

This is relevant because it supports the idea that advance familiarity with a real environment can help some children during transition. It should not be treated as proof that every virtual tour will produce the same outcome in every school or age group.

Source: Kotaman, Balci, Aydin Kilic and Tutkun, The effect of virtual school tour on preschool children’s school adjustment
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-025-13846-5

SEND, inclusion and predictable environments

Transitions between buildings, phases and providers can be pressure points for many disabled learners and pupils with SEND. Practical barriers may include unfamiliar spaces, unclear routes, uncertainty about toilets, dining areas, support rooms and quieter spaces.

Accessible pre-familiarisation (or virtual familiarisation, as some people refer to it) can help schools and colleges present environmental information in a clearer, more usable way before arrival.

Charlton Park Academy and CENMAC have publicly described their partnership with Ocean 3D as creating interactive, WCAG-compliant virtual tours of key learning and support areas across Charlton Park Academy. Their public article says the technology enables pupils, families, multi-disciplinary professionals and new staff to explore the school online before visiting in person.

Source: CENMAC, Making learning more accessible at Charlton Park Academy with Ocean 3D Technology
https://cenmac.com/2025/11/making-learning-more-accessible-at-charlton-park-academy-with-ocean-3d-technology/

Transport and journey confidence

Transport environments can be difficult to understand before travel. Passengers may need to know about entrances, routes, boarding points, seats, toilets, luggage areas, assistance points and the general layout before they feel able to travel confidently.

Lumo has publicly described its Ocean 3D virtual train tour as a tool that allows customers to explore the train’s accessibility features ahead of travel. Lumo also reported that the upgraded tour increased visitors to the facility by 49% in its first month compared with the previous version, and that the earlier version enabled more than 14,200 people to explore Lumo trains during its lifetime. Lumo included their Ocean 3D virtual tour as part of their Office of Road and Rail Accessible Transport Policy ‘passenger assist’.

These are client-published figures, not universal outcomes. They are useful because they show real-world passenger interest in pre-travel familiarisation.

Source: Lumo, Tour before you travel
https://www.lumo.co.uk/who-we-are/lumonews/tour-before-you-travel%2C-lumo-prioritises-accessibility-with-new-online-tool

Accessibility standards

A standard virtual tour is not automatically accessible or WCAG compliant.

Where accessibility is claimed, the wording should be specific. The safer public wording is:

Designed and tested against WCAG 2.2 Level AA within the stated scope, on the stated date.

That distinction is important, because accessibility depends on the website, the embedded tour, the overlay, the content added to the tour and the scope of testing.

Source: W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/

Legal and policy context

Ocean 3D commissioned legal advice from Louise Mankau of Doughty Street Chambers. Her 4 June 2021 opinion explains that, in suitable circumstances, a pre-familiarisation tour may form part of an auxiliary aid or reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010.

That is professional legal opinion. It is not binding law, regulator approval, government endorsement or a claim that every organisation must provide a virtual tour.

Source: Equality Act 2010, section 20
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/20

Evidence from Ocean 3D projects

Ocean 3D has delivered pre-familiarisation work across rail, airports, healthcare, education, heritage, culture and tourism.

The strongest public examples currently include Lumo, Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport, Theatre Royal Bath, PK Porthcurno, Morrab Surgery and Charlton Park Academy/CENMAC.

Project evidence should be described by type:

Client-published evidence: information published by the client or partner, such as Lumo or CENMAC.

Ocean 3D analytics: measured usage figures from platforms such as Matterport or GA4, always with the date range and metric name.

Testimonials: named or permission-controlled feedback from users or clients.

Independent media coverage: articles that report Ocean 3D’s work, without treating coverage as formal endorsement.

How we use evidence responsibly

We separate different types of evidence because they do different jobs.

Peer-reviewed research can help explain why familiarisation may matter. Client-published evidence can show how a project was used in practice. Analytics can show engagement with a specific tour over a specific period. Legal opinion can help explain possible relevance to reasonable adjustments, but it is not the same as law or regulator approval.

We avoid claims such as “fully accessible”, “guaranteed to reduce anxiety”, “NHS approved” or “market leader” unless there is precise, current evidence for that exact claim.

Talk to us

If you are responsible for a school, college, transport service, healthcare setting, venue or visitor destination, we can help you consider whether virtual/ pre-familiarisation would be useful, proportionate and appropriate for your setting.