EXPLORING BENEFITS OF USING AUGMENTED REALITY FOR USABILITY TESTING

This study explores the use of augmented reality (AR) in product usability testing compared to traditional methods. AR is being used in various fields, but this technology's use for usability testing has been very limited. This study specifically explored if it could be used for product usability testing. For this study, a product that is already in the market was used. First, the usability of the product was tested using traditional methods. Then the same product was modeled for augmented reality environment and subsequently a different set of users were asked to accomplish same tasks in AR environment. Same questionnaire was provided to all users for feedback. The feedback received using the two methods was compared. It was hypothesized that similar usability feedback could be obtained through AR as compared to traditional usability testing. The results showed that the feedback gathered using the two methods were the same, showing that evaluation of the AR representation of the product's usability is comparable to usability evaluation of the actual product.