User experience in mobile augmented reality applications : The digital native perspective

Characteristic for upcoming technology is that it is growing, constantly developing and fast implemented in people's lives. Augmented reality (AR) is one of these technologies and more companies are implementing AR in their daily operations. AR can be described as a large amount of data, being transformed into images that are attached to the real world. The technique takes digital images and applies it to the reality through a mobiles camera lens. When used for mobile application it is called mobile augmented reality (MAR). MAR applications are expected to be as successful as smartphones was when it was first released. The revenue is set to be over $120 billion dollars by 2020. Even though it sees huge potential, few studies are done on user experience (UX) and satisfaction for the end user. This information could be a crucial asset for AR stakeholders in the prosperous future. A generation of interest for technology stakeholders is the digital natives who are people born between 1980 and 2000. They have been brought up with technology and they are comfortable with adapting to new technologies and they are not late on trying them out. This study combined the three fields of interest, MAR, UX and the digital natives, for the purpose to develop knowledge of what factors within UX that digital natives’ value as most important for a MAR application. A quantitative method with an inductive approach were used to answer the research question. The researchers used a questionnaire to collect the data that was later analyzed with the help of Google Forms, Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Predetermined factors from a theoretical framework was presented to the participants of the study; perspicuity (easy to learn, easy to understand), dependability (predictable, secure), efficiency (fast, organized), novelty (creative, innovative) and stimulation (exiting, interesting). The study concluded that perspicuity, novelty and efficiency were the most important factors of UX in MAR applications according to the digital natives