Unraveling the Meta Quest 3: An Out-of-Box Experience of the Future of Mixed Reality Headsets

The application of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) to industrial settings, military, manufacturing, and education continues to increase as more affordable devices and applications become available (Bottani & Vignali, 2019; Ahir et al., 2020). As such, it is necessary to understand a user’s first impressions of these products as it demonstrates a product’s ease of use, learnability, and acceptance. An Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) is a method that assesses user perceptions of product unboxing, setup, and first-time usage. This study will report the results of an Out-of-Box Experience for the Meta Quest 3 among novice users. The Meta Quest 3 is unique in that it has both AR and VR capabilities so users can be immersed within their own environment or in a completely virtual world. This poster will display summary results from six first-time users as they unboxed and used the headset for the first time. Key findings regarding the delights and frustrations of each stage of the process will be displayed along with recommendations for improvement based on human factors principles. In addition, results from the Net Promoter Score and the System Usability Scale will also be discussed as they relate to the users’ OOBE experience.