Date: June 17, 2024

Location: Biblioteksgatan 8, 374 35 Karlshamn, Sweden,

BTH kampus, Building B, room 3.104 “Ateljén”

Time: 9:00 – 12:30

As Extended Reality (XR) technologies continue to revolutionize the way we interact with digital environments as well as with others by using XR, understanding and optimizing user experiences within these immersive realms becomes increasingly vital. In this era of rapid technological advancement, XR applications span a wide spectrum, from entertainment and gaming to education, healthcare, and industrial training. Whether donning a VR headset to explore a simulated environment or overlaying digital information onto the physical world through augmented reality, or providing interactive Social XR, users expect seamless and engaging experiences that blur the lines between the virtual and the real. Achieving this requires a deep understanding of user behavior, preferences, and physiological responses within XR environments.
Measuring user experiences in XR involves employing a diverse array of methodologies, including qualitative assessments such as user interviews, observation studies, and usability testing, as well as quantitative metrics like questionnaires, task completion and error rates, time spent in VR environments, exploration and interaction behavior, and physiological data gathered through biometric sensors. These approaches aim to capture both subjective impressions and objective performance metrics, providing a comprehensive view of the user experience landscape.
Furthermore, modeling user experiences in XR involves constructing computational frameworks that simulate user exploration and interactions, and predict their impact on engagement, satisfaction, and task performance. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, cognitive models, and predictive analytics, researchers and developers can iterate on XR designs more efficiently, anticipating user needs and preferences to create more immersive and user-centric experiences.
Following the footsteps of a recently held Dagstuhl Seminar on Social XR, we invite the research community to participate in a half-day workshop to further discuss the topic of measuring and modeling user experiences in XR. The format of the workshop will involve short lightning talks around the topic of measuring and modelling experiences in XR, followed by an exchange of ideas around the challenges and opportunities that arise in this new medium, and how to best quantify and optimize user experience in this context. The goal of this gathering is to find topics of common interest, and foster future research cooperation around them. This way, an increased validity and reliability of assessment approaches for XR technology through the lens of user experience shall be fostered.