Digital Ethnography in Mixed Reality (MR) Communities: Searching New Usage Scenarios

Abstract

This article aims to present the results of digital ethnographic research we conducted within the XR communities, seeking to understand what are the main pains of users of extended reality today, how they see this technology on the rise, and what perceptions they have about the future of the XR.

From what we were able to analyze from the data collected in the digital ethnography, we were able to understand that XR technology is constantly evolving, but that it may soon reach a more accessible level within the market.

The XR is a great revolutionary promise within several scenarios such as education, health, industry, entertainment, and social, but the current XR technologies have different factors that still need to evolve, from their immature UX within their applications to the strong deficit in their Form Factor. For these reasons they end up hindering the constant use of this technology by users in their daily routines, leaving them to use these devices only in specific activities that don’t require much effort. All these factors make the mass adoption of this technology slower.