Evaluating the User Experience of an Augmented Reality Prototype for Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

Enterprise architecture (EA) visualizations like text, diagrams, and models are commonly displayed on 2D screens and are manipulated with a computer mouse and keyboard. The additional application of augmented reality (AR) promises improvements in terms of understanding complex architectural relationships and enables more natural manipulation of visualizations, ultimately leading to better decision-making. As part of a Design Science Research (DSR) project, we report on an empirical evaluation of user experience of an EA visualizing prototype deployed on an optical see-through head-mounted display (HMD) with 13 practitioners. The examined prototype displays a three-layer model that allows the analysis of randomly generated EAs. The participants performed 13 tasks which differed in complexity and context. In this study we qualitatively observe users' behavior. Our results indicate that AR is suitable to analyze EA. In particular those stakeholders less experienced with EA can benefit from utilizing EA visualizations in AR.