A Use Case Study on Fear and System Perception in Haptic VR vs. Physical High-Fidelity Medical Prototype Testing

Full-fledged medical system evaluations of high-fidelity prototypes can be costly. Development, transportation, and breakage of high-fidelity prototypes make considering virtual reality (VR) as a replacement an interesting option. The question rises however if both types of testing (VR and high-fidelity real-life prototype testing) are perceived in the same way by participants. This study compares the perceived user experience (UX) of haptic VR testing with a real-life prototype within the use case of an automated vaccination device. A medical prototype was evaluated in terms of usability (SUS) and hedonic, pragmatic and attractiveness attributes (AttrakDiff). The results show that both prototypes are rated with similar scores in terms of usability, pragmatic and hedonic qualities and attractiveness. The reporting of the participants indicated that in both scenarios the anticipation right before the skin prick was the most frightening. The preliminary results of the physiological data show mixed results between both conditions.