THE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Under the provisions of the regulations for the degree 

MASTER OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

on 

MONDAY, April 25, 2022 

9:00 – 10:30 a.m. 

in the 203 Classroom D.M. Smith or 

via https://bluejeans.com/141411762/8101  

will be held the 

PROJECT/THESIS DEFENSE 

for 

Ted Kim 

“A Comparison of Laboratory and Synchronous Remote Usability Testing Methods Using AR” 

Advisor: 

Dr. Young Mi Choi – School of Industrial Design 

Committee: 

Dr. Leila Aflatoony– School of Industrial Design 

Prof. Timothy Purdy – School of Industrial Design 

Faculty and students are invited to attend this presentation. 

Abstract: 

It has been demonstrated that virtual prototypes can be used productively in usability testing. Virtual prototypes, Augmented Reality (AR) in particular, has received some attention as platforms that support AR such as cell phones and iPads, which combine both the real and virtual worlds, become ubiquitous. 

Structured AR usability testing in the product development phase enables obtaining early user feedback, allowing companies to focus on UX from the early design phase. Therefore, several studies of usability testing using AR have been conducted, and there have been attempts to perform AR usability testing with remote settings. However, the authentic AR experience has not been provided to the participants due to complicated setup and logistics problems. They revealed many challenges such as different experimental mindsets, communication with participants, a sense of distance from the actual AR experience, and technical issues. 

This study was aimed to make such a direct comparison between the conventional lab-based (as a control group) usability testing, conventional lab-based AR usability testing, and a remote synchronous AR usability testing method to determine whether typical outcome variables (e.g. performance, satisfaction, accuracy) of usability tests would be affected by the reduced experiment control (e.g. presence of experimenter, user environment). Three different approaches would be conducted to compare the validity and usability for AR.