Evaluating Social Acceptance of eXtended Reality (XR) Agent Technology: A User Study (Extended Version)
This addresses social acceptance of XR technology for journalists in remote training scenarios, but is incremental as it adapts an existing model to a specific domain.
The paper evaluated social acceptance of an XR agent technology for journalist training using a web-based system with virtual avatars, finding that users perceived it as useful and easy to use while identifying areas for improvement in dependability and security.
In this paper, we present the findings of a user study that evaluated the social acceptance of eXtended Reality (XR) agent technology, focusing on a remotely accessible, web-based XR training system developed for journalists. This system involves user interaction with a virtual avatar, enabled by a modular toolkit. The interactions are designed to provide tailored training for journalists in digital-remote settings, especially for sensitive or dangerous scenarios, without requiring specialized end-user equipment like headsets. Our research adapts and extends the Almere model, representing social acceptance through existing attributes such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, along with added ones like dependability and security in the user-agent interaction. The XR agent was tested through a controlled experiment in a real-world setting, with data collected on users' perceptions. Our findings, based on quantitative and qualitative measurements involving questionnaires, contribute to the understanding of user perceptions and acceptance of XR agent solutions within a specific social context, while also identifying areas for the improvement of XR systems.