User Experience of Real and Virtual Products: a Comparison of Perceived Product Qualities

Virtual reality (VR) enables immersive experiences where users can explore products in the virtual world. In the last few years VR technologies have developed so much that the idea of substituting experiences with real products through those with virtual representation is growing, even with all inaccuracies of the computer-generated experience. If these virtual experiences are adapted as real, how huge will be the opportunities to increase the effectiveness of product development processes? For example, what if we can virtualize main parts of prototyping because we can get valuable feedback on a virtual representative? Thus, understanding the possibilities of VR to create products and evaluate their user experience (UX) is gaining in importance. While previous research analyzed the UX of interactive products, only few studies have investigated the UX of VR-product representations compared to the real world. In order to get a first step towards understanding the UX of virtual products, we conducted a product test that compares the UX of real products with their representations in virtual reality. In an empirical study, our subjects judged three different products with respect to their hedonic and pragmatic qualities by evaluating them through the AttrakDiff 2 questionnaire. The results from our user study revealed that there are in fact no significant differences in the user experience for two out of the three products. However, one object was rated significantly better in virtual reality compared to the real counterpart. Furthermore, qualitative user statements have been analyzed, showing that the users either valued or disliked different aspects of the products depending on whether these products were perceived in real life or VR: In summary, our study shows that there is already a high level of comparability between real and virtual product experience. At the same time, it reveals some question approaches that still have to be answered when experiencing virtual product representatives as if they were real.