1H3-3 A Systematic Review of Extended Reality (XR)’s Head-Mounted Display (HMD) Hardware Design Factors from the Perspective of Usability

Abstract

The study on XR's; a superset of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR), headsets was found to be sporadic and decentralized especially with regards to studies on the hardware of the virtual environment system. However, as the interest on artificial reality such as XR is increasingly on the rise, there is lack of study and consensus on the hardware aspect of XR. This is especially true in terms of the usability of XR's hardware. The paper aims to identify the major properties of the hardware design factors of XR's HMD that affects the usability in the virtual environment. Conducting a systematic review, this paper applied an adjusted Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) review protocol. 7 scientific and engineering related journal databases were selected to collect research papers. The collection of research papers used keyword combinations of "reality", "head mounted display", and "usability". The papers were collected from the period year of 2000 till 2018. From the databases a total of 2,136 articles were collected first, and 35 articles are reviewed after the final screening. The screening criteria for the full-text review are hardware design factors on usability issues. It was discovered that critical features from the results have pointed the following hardware design factors such as "head fit", "field of view (FOV)", "weight", "occlusive design", "resolution", and "wires" cause usability issues. This highlights future research focus through commonly occurring properties such as degrees of FOV, ideal weight, and matters such connectivity freedom. Such research focus also leads to opportunity in verifying, identifying, and applying of future HMD hardware design parameters, thus improving the current standards that are available out there in the market.