The design challenges.
When considering the design implications for creating AR and VR technology, UX practitioners need to consider a wide range of challenges they may come across. Current work around investigating these challenges seems to be fairly consistent across a range of literature, the main themes being:
Lack of instructional design
Costs
Little/no training for teachers available in using the products
Difficulties in emotional impacts upon students with learning disabilities
Design challenges with varying lighting settings.
Lack of instructional design: This focuses on catering designs to different learning experiences, this is a main issue presented in the study Difficulties in the incorporation of Augmented Reality in University Education [6]. People learn best in different ways, the main three outlined being kinaesthetic (doing), auditory (listening), and visual (seeing), and the study suggests this being a main concern from industry experts in the implementation of AR into universities. Being difficult to adapt to each individual person, there’s a lot of scepticism around this barrier.
Cost: The same study from above [6] also highlights concerns with cost. It describes cost as being a main concern to implementing AR into higher education institutes, considering buying the products alone isn’t the only expense. You need to consider purchasing software, insurance, teacher training, educational material and content, on top of the product price to ensure a full experience.
Lack of educational materials:
Teacher training: One study researching the limitations of using AR in a university setting [6] found that in a questionnaire subject experts felt as though teacher training was the top obstacle in fully and successfully implementing AR into a higher education setting. The study then goes on to suggest AR is a poor tool as used in material for teaching, or at the very least currently has a cloud of uncertainty surrounding it.
Learning disabilities: Consideration towards those with alternative accessibility and learning needs is something that needs to be at a forefront in most design challenges, one paper studies the effectiveness of AR with students with varying learning difficulties [7]. Despite overall finding a positive outcome, the paper outlines a need for a deeper consideration into AR and its emotional influence on students with these needs- how to allow for an integrated learning experience regardless of individual.
Lighting: The University of California published an academic paper highlighting the issues with augmented reality and changing lighting conditions [8]. It outlines the issue with varying lighting and AR’s ability to adapt in new environments, noting that fundamentally all variations of AR have the same basic components- and therefore the same underlying issue with its hardware capabilities.
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