Mobile 360° panoramic training for commercial kitchen safety: usability and learning outcomes

Commercial kitchens are high-risk workplaces where staff routinely face hazards such as slips, burns, lacerations, and chemical exposure. Conventional classroom-based safety training often suffers from low engagement and weak retention, limiting preparedness for dynamic, high-pressure conditions. To address this, the present study developed and evaluated a mobile 360° panoramic training platform to enhance hazard awareness in commercial kitchens. Unlike fully modeled virtual reality (VR) simulations or generic training contexts, the platform delivers authentic kitchen imagery in dual modes—immersive via Google Cardboard and non-immersive via smartphone—balancing realism, accessibility, and cost efficiency. This exploratory quantitative study involved thirty semester-one culinary students (ages 18–23) from Kolej Komuniti Bukit Beruang, Melaka, recruited through a convenience sampling approach. Participants completed pre- and post-training hazard-identification tests and the System Usability Scale (SUS). Usability ratings were consistently high across ease of use, learnability, efficiency, and satisfaction (means 4.27–4.70). Hazard-identification scores increased significantly from 29.33 to 83.67; a paired-samples t-test confirmed the improvement (p < 0.001, d = 3.46). Participant feedback highlighted realism and accessibility as strengths, though reduced interactivity compared to full VR was noted. Findings align with prior VR-based training studies in healthcare and construction, suggesting that panoramic imagery can deliver comparable learning gains at lower cost and deployment effort. Limitations include the small, short-term sample, absence of a control group, and user-reported issues such as headset discomfort and accessibility concerns. Future research should examine longitudinal retention, controlled comparisons with traditional training, and scalability across diverse settings to establish broader real-world impact.