Why Human-Centered XR Metrics Matter

Extended Reality (XR) systems are often evaluated by technical performance alone (frame rate, latency, tracking precision). Those metrics are essential, but they are not enough to explain whether an experience is actually usable, engaging, and safe for people in real-world scenarios.

In our research, we therefore combine subjective and objective measurements:

• Subjective measures: standardized questionnaires on Quality of Experience (QoE), usability, presence, workload, and simulator sickness.
• Objective measures: behavioral logs (task completion time, error rates, interaction traces) and psychophysiological signals (e.g., heart-rate variability and skin conductance).

This integrated view helps answer practical questions such as:

1. Which interaction technique supports both high performance and low cognitive load?
2. How stable are user responses across different contexts (learning, training, digital health)?
3. Which signals can serve as reliable proxies for experience quality in longitudinal studies?

Over the next blog posts, I will share short insights from ongoing work on human-centered XR evaluation and how these findings can inform the design of future immersive systems.