Parents’ user experiences of augmented reality book reading: perceptions, expectations, and intentions

Parents play an important role in students’ informal learning with technology; however, there is a lack of relevant research, particularly regarding parents’ opinions on students’ learning with emerging technology such as augmented reality (AR). This study was therefore conducted in an initial attempt to explore parents’ user experience (UX) of reading an AR book with their children from the perspectives of perceptions, expectations, and intention. There were 47 pairs of parents and their children invited to participate in a shared AR book reading activity in this study. Each parent was interviewed for qualitatively understanding their UX of reading the AR book, and their intention to use AR books were also quantitatively measured. The results show that the parents exhibited several types of perceived UX (i.e., sense of reality, novelty, playfulness and entertainment, awareness, memory and knowledge, guiding, distracting, and antipathy) and expected UX (i.e., interactivity, portability, sense of touch, vivid animation, value-added, and suitability). The findings further addressed the relationships between the parents’ perceived and expected UX and their intention to adopt AR books for their children in the future. Some suggestions for the development and popularization of AR book systems are also proposed.