Being there for real: presence in real and virtual environments and its relation to usability

Abstract

Presence, the participants' feeling of "being there" in an environment, is important for usability studies, as this can affect their outcomes. We aim at extending the concept of presence from virtual to real environments in the context of usability studies. We compare two environments -- a virtual field environment (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment [CAVE]) and a real laboratory environment -- in a between-subjects study by means of presence. In both environments, we evaluate the usability and learnability of a mobile application. Data (n = 65) shows higher ecological validity for the real environment, but higher engagement as well as higher negative effects for the virtual environment. There is no significant difference between usability and learnability between the two environments. Presence factors are significantly related to usability in the two environments. The results suggest that -- although there are differences in presence -- virtual and real environments perform equally in usability studies.