Mixed Reality Affordances for Skill Development

This paper presents different scenarios of the use of mixed reality (MR) for skill development to investigate issues, usability, and potential affordances of MR. Initially, a feasibility study was conducted by developing an application that guides users in assembling a computer and positioning different components on a computer motherboard. Another experiment was the Tangram app to teach how to solve the Tangram puzzle. This app was evaluated by usability experts and 90 students in user testing. On the basis of the evaluation results, another app was implemented where the specific affordances of mixed reality were fully exploited. The T-shirt folding app was developed to guide a user to fold a T-shirt, showing hand movements with an animation above it. Finally, another application was developed to investigate MR potential to develop spatial skills, in particular for 2D-3D mapping. On the basis of the findings drawn from these experiments, an innovative MR affordance framework has been defined that captures and classifies potential user actions in an immersive environment. This framework is a valid tool to provide design guidance to implement more usable MR applications. The lessons learned from these experiences demonstrate that it is important to take into account the peculiar affordance of the MR environment by exploiting 3D object direct manipulation; it is also fundamental to provide appropriate signifiers and feedback to reduce spatial clutter and simplify the interface to keep the user concentration on the target task.