Conceptual and Methodological Focusing

First of all, to recapitulate Chapters 2 and 3, two central gaps in research knowledge can be identified.

(1) There is little empirical understanding of what expected user experience as a concept means and what the experiential expectations actually are – especially with regard to emerging technologies like MAR.

(2) Despite the apparent experiential potential in MAR, there is very little research focusing on the UX of this particular field.

Consequently, there is a need for methods and measures to scrutinize experiential aspects related to, for example, the augmented perception of one’s environment, novel interacting metaphors, location- and object-awareness, embedded information accessed with AR, and generally any novelties that MAR offers. Undestanding of potential users’ expectations helps identifying the experiential potential in this new field as well as creating specific design implications and evaluation measures to facilitate development of successful MAR services.

The aforementioned, however, offers a broad space to be researched, hence requiring the thesis to be further focused. The following further specifies the scope of the thesis with regard to the type and characteristics of AR (the technology), application areas and target user group, and what aspects of UX and expectations are specifically looked into (the user). The focus decisions are illustrated in Figure 10 and specified in the following.

With regard to AR, the focus is on visual augmentation, according to the original idea of AR. After all, vision has a central role in human’s functional interaction and it can be easily utilized in UI design to attract attention. Vision is much about browsing the surroundings and perceiving the affordances in the environments, which are central aspects also in MAR. Furthermore, it was seen straightforward to use visual AR examples as stimuli and introductions for the participants in the studies.

Based on the justification in Chapters 1 and 3, the thesis focuses on mobile AR, that is, AR in mobile contexts and activities where a mobile device is used as the interface hardware. Stationary and laboratory-based AR systems and large spatial AR installations are purposely left aside. The studies covered both hand-held and head-mounted mobile interfaces but as the hardware was not in focus in gathering users’ expectations, no differentiation between the types of devices is made in the results.

Figure 10. Focusing the scope of the thesis to specific types of AR, target users, application areas, and elements of user experience and expectations.

Furthermore, the expectations of MAR are viewed from the perspective of MAR services. A MAR service includes not only the technological system and devices and the application that offers certain functionalities, but also the AR information content and the way of interacting with MAR. This is seen as the entity that the users would perceive when interacting with MAR – as envisioned in the expectation studies. With this broad perspective, it is possible to look into not only the immediate expectations related to the devices and functionalities, but also the expectations related to the novel way of interacting with technology, the novel type of content, and the purpose and context of use.

As for actual experiences of MAR, the term application is used to refer to the first-generation MAR applications like Layar and Junaio. This is to distinguish between the (1) expectations and potential of future services and (2) the realities of the existing applications (i.e., not being very versatile demonstrators of the conceptual richness of MAR).

Regarding the possible application areas for MAR, a general focus is on information acquisition in the context of casual and unscheduled activities. A central part of people’s activities in mobile contexts consist of running daily errands, searching for information about near-by things, wayfinding to places and objects, making purchase decisions and comparing products and services, exploration of the nearby environment, and spending time with various entertaining applications. Such casual but day-to-day aspects have not been addressed in prior MAR applications even though the area offers a diverse design space for activities that take place relatively frequently. Although this focus is still rather broad, it leaves out areas like professional and industrial applications (e.g., medical, construction, military), education and learning, collaborative activities, and AR in vehicles.

Concerning the various user research stances, the focus is on user experience. Following a central principle in grounded theory, no specific UX frameworks are used for classification purposes in the analysis of qualitative data (Strauss & Corbin 1990). For analysis purposes, UX is regarded as

subjective, temporally changing and depending on the user, system and context. Nevertheless, existing UX frameworks are used for contrasting and reflecting the results in Section 6.2. Furthermore, user acceptance (see, e.g., Venkatesh 2003) is a secondary framework as it can be seen to relate to user expectations as well. User acceptance as an older concept than UX has brought about various validated metrics that were used to support gathering theoretically as extensive data as possible in the studies. This perspective was used especially to look into what aspects of MAR affect especially the perceived usefulness and overall willingness to use. Aspects not considered in this regard are the process of taking the consumer-targeted applications into use or the elements that have contributed to the users’

selection processes. The empirical findings related to subjective statements and questions on user acceptance are reported in the papers but, for the sake of focusing, not summarized in the thesis.

With regard to the types of experience, the focus is on the user’s personal and first-hand experiences that are meaningful, processed and conscious – instead of merely sensory or emotional experiences, or experiences of which the user is not aware. In the reflection framework by Wright et al. (2008) this relates to the processes of interpreting and reflecting, and partly also to recounting and appropriating. After all, meaningful and memorable experiences are important in judging the overall value of a product or service and they play a role in sharing experiences with other people.

Furthermore, it would be inaccurate to investingate purely emotional or sensory experiences with merely qualitative interviewing. This leaves out, e.g., routine experiences that the user is accustomed to and implicit socially observed experiences where the user is not directly interacting with the system.

As for expectations, the focus is on the types and targets of the expectations – not the process of how expectations form based on earlier experiences, or the relative strengths of the different expectations.

As introduced in Section 2.4, expectations are here understood very broadly. Most often, the expectations were manifested as participants’ needs for information or suggestions of how to use MAR in various situations, that is, positive expectations that can be seen as “ideal expectations or desires”

(cf. Teas 1993). Such needs might stem from, for example, the participants’ personalities and personal values. In addition, some expectations were manifested as requirements or presumptions stemming from their knowledge of prior technologies that allow similar functionalities (i.e., “normative ‘should’

expectations” and “experience-based norms” according to Teas 1993). In planning studies of such a new ground, it was seen best to not only focus too strictly on, e.g., presumptions or needs but, rather, to understand very broadly how people perceive and anticipate a novel technology. In the meta-analysis of the studies (see Section 4.2.5), however, especially the needs and desires were focused on due to their probable value as desirable experiential targets in design and evaluation.

Furthermore, the time scale was set to 3-10 years in the future in order to help the participants of the studies not to be limited to concurrent technological or societal limitations. At the time of conducting the expectations studies, MAR was not a publicly well-known concept. The prior familiarity with MAR was not inquired consistently from every participant but all those who were inquired orally in Studies 1 and 2 replied that they were new to the topic. In the online survey (Study 3) this aspect was not inquired but, based on the answers and backgrounds of the participants, we can interpret that most had no prior knowledge of MAR in this study either. Consequently, all the studies included

textual and visual of introductions (i.e., stimulus material) to help the participants orient to the futuristic topic of MAR. The stimuli included, e.g., rough concept images of augmented content on various real objects and places, textual scenarios describing future MAR services and their use, and the surrounding environment as a contextual stimulus in Study 2 (see Section 4.2 for more detailed descriptions). The used stimuli naturally might have affected the participants’ expectations (i.e., priming effect), which is discussed more thoroughly in Section 7.1.

Finally, the target user group in the expectations studies was broadly set to early adopters and innovators (Rogers 1995), i.e., people who are oriented in using modern information technology and thus prone to appropriate new technologies in the near future. In practice, this meant recruiting people from forums where such people could be reached (e.g., AR-related blogs and discussion forums, universities’ mailing lists, social media; see the papers and Section 4.2 for details). The belongingness to this group of people was measured in each study in terms of level of technological orientation and attitudes towards technology. Considering the diffusion of technology, we anticipated it to be revealing to understand how early adopters value the technology, to what purposes they see it useful for, and what are the issues that they see to stand in the way of making the technology more widespread – before studying the majority of consumers. Research on early adopters can allow identifying the most fundamental issues with the current and potential solutions and envisioning more appropriate application areas for the future. For example, Von Hippel (2005) suggests that, for the purposes of democratization of innovation, companies should follow their “lead users” and their development of existing products for their own use in order to find profitable new products.

Furthermore, a practical reason is that early adopters, being interested in technology, are easier to be involved in especially lengthy interviews than the majorities. This target group does not allow generalization of the results to entire populations: they probably have higher and more positively biased expectations and perceptions of emerging technologies than the majority. Generalization, however, was not either the goal with the qualitative research approach. Moreover, the assumedly more moderate expectations of the majorities would hardly serve as inspiring design targets for future MAR services.