Usability Checklist / Playbook for Cross Reality Laboratories

This is a checklist (and accompanying playbook) to evaluate the usability and user experience of cross reality laboratories (e.g., remote labs, VR labs, AR labs) but can probably also be used for other learning environments. It was tested by people inside and outside of project CrossLab and we feel that the current version is ready for release. The checklist was designed as a tool for “self-help”. We believe that creators of cross reality laboratories have an interest in creating good laboratories but often lack knowledge in usability and user experience. It is not intended as a tool to quantitively measure the usability of a laboratory and the usage as such has not been validated by us. The playbook is an accompanying tool to get more information on the items found in the checklist and can be used for both improving laboratories as well as getting a better understanding of usability. At the core, the checklist and playbook are based on the results of Kobras et al. (2024) and Herrmann et al. (nd), since those contain insights into specific usability / user experience issues of cross reality laboratories. Additional sources from usability research (DIN EN ISO 9241-210:2019 Ergonomics of human-system interaction Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems, 2019; ISO 9241-11:2018 Ergonomics of human-system interaction Part 11: Usability: Definitions and concepts, 2018; Nielsen, 2001, USA, 2006) were added to ensure the tools contain all important aspects of usability research. After that, the checklist as well as the playbook were tested and adjusted over multiple rounds with laboratory creators to ensure it is comprehensible. A detailed publication about the creation process is currently being written and will be linked here once published. This research was part of the project "Flexibel kombinierbare Cross-Reality Labore in der Hochschullehre: zukunftsfähige Kompetenzentwicklung für ein Lernen und Arbeiten 4.0 (CrossLab)", which is funded by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre (https://stiftung-hochschullehre.de/), Germany. * The first three authors contributed equally to this work.