Enabling Users in Virtual-Reality-Based Human-Centered Design Processes: The Role of Objective Validation on Acceptance, Usability, and User Experience

Kurzfassung

Involving stakeholders and users into design processes has been an ongoing effort to align product expectation with a novel value proposition to users. Utilizing virtual reality to find what users need and want can be crucial to reduce costs while gaining insights into their needs and demands for products that have not yet been physically produced. We propose a phase-segmented simulation design to guide users to find their preferred design in an iterative reevaluating objective. To facilitate the guidance, we introduced an objective validation as visualized overview to add information for users to evaluate their own design decisions. Our study evaluates the process in terms of acceptance, usability and user experience regarding the validation phase and simulation experience as a whole. Our results concluded that the simulation achieves high usability (System Usability Scale > 80.0 points) and positive user experience (User Experience Questionnaire mean = 1.63). Finally, we look at the limitations of the study and improvement in comprehensibility and how further information can improve the user experience.