Overview 

Extended Reality (XR) is transforming how we engage with digital content, yet designing compelling XR experiences remains challenging. This tutorial presents foundational and advanced concepts in Interaction Design tailored for XR environments, focusing on methods for ideation, design, and prototyping, and evaluation. We will explore user-centered design approaches and walk participants through a selection of design patterns, prototyping tools, and real-world case studies. The session emphasizes practical takeaways for building natural, inclusive, and engaging XR applications for both research and deployment contexts. 

Presentation 

The tutorial on Interaction Design for eXtended reality will be given over three and a half hours at IEEEVR2026 (March 22nd, 08h:30 - 12h00 2026) in Daegu, South Korea . 

Participants will gain:

• A concise overview of XR-specific Interaction Design frameworks

• An introduction to needs analysis and design ideation

• Exposure to rapid prototyping tools and techniques

• Methods for conducting user evaluation studies

• Inspiration from recent systems and academic/industry use cases

This half-day tutorial is intended for researchers, practitioners, and students interested in the design of immersive XR experiences, particularly those seeking methodological guidance or exposure to best practices. 

Presenters

For more information, email: jorgej@ieee.org

Schedule

8:30 - 8:45 am (15 minutes) Introduction (Joaquim+Mark)

Introduction to Interaction Design and the Interaction Design cycle of Needs Analysis, Design, Prototyping and Evaluation. Example case study showing how these steps are combined in a real XR application.

1.1 Introduction to Interaction Design

1.2 Overview of the Interaction Design Cycle

1.3 Case Study: CityViewAR application (Mark Video - 5 minutes)

8:45 - 8:55 am (20 minutes) Needs Analysis (Joaquim)

This section provides an overview of how to conduct a user-centred needs analysis and identify the key factors that can inform the design of XR applications. Techniques and tools, such as interviewing and Empathy Maps, will be presented, along with examples of their application.

2.1 Introduction to Needs Analysis

2.2 Interviewing techniques

2.3 Empathy Maps and Personas

2.4 Problem definition

2.5 Case Study: XR Training Application

8:55 - 9:35 am (40 minutes) Designing for XR (Joaquim)

Discusses designing for XR, including the cognitive and perceptual factors that must be considered for XR design, established design guidelines, design tools, and how to design for immersion, Presence and accessibility.

3.1 Cognitive and perceptual factors influencing user design.

3.2 XR design principles

3.3 Design tools for XR

3.4 Designing for immersion, presence, and accessibility.

9:35 - 9:45 am (15 minutes) Break

9:45 - 10:15 am (45 minutes) Prototyping (Joaquim+Mark)

This section introduces the prototyping process and discusses the difference between low-level prototyping and high-level prototyping. A range of tools will be introduced for both types of prototyping, along with guidelines for effective prototyping.

4.1 Overview of the prototyping process

4.2 Low level prototyping tools

4.3 High level prototyping tools

4.4 Guidelines for effective prototyping

4.5 Case Study: Prototyping the Bunratty Mobile AR application (Mark video - 5 minutes)

10:15 - 10:45 am (30 minutes) Evaluating XR Applications (Joaquim+Mark)

Discusses how to evaluate the XR prototypes that have been developed, including use of different types of user evaluation, qualitative and quantitative measures that can be used, and experiment design and reporting.

5.1 Introduction to Evaluation

5.2 Types of Evaluation

5.3 Qualitative and Quantitative measures

5.4 Designing and running user studies

5.5 Data analysis

5.6 Case Study: VR Navigation Study

10:45  - 11:10 am (25 minutes) Research Directions in XR Interaction Design (Joaquim)

This section provides an overview of recent research in XR Interaction Design, including key papers from the CHI, UIST, IEEE VR, and ISMAR conferences. An overview of the application of AI techniques in XR design and prototyping will be provided, along with a discussion of promising areas for research in Interaction Design methods. Finally, there will be a presentation of websites, books, courses and other tools and resources for learning more about Interaction Design for XR.

6.1 Recent research in Interaction Design for XR

6.2 Using AI techniques to support XR Interaction Design

6.3 Using AI for XR prototyping

6.4 Areas for future research in XR Interaction Design

6.5 Tools and resources

11:10 - 12pm Discussion

Notes

1. Introduction

2. Discovering Requirements<

3. Designing for XR

4. Prototyping

5. Evaluation

6. Research Directions