Introduction – Why Understanding User Needs Is Not Enough
When developing innovative technologies, understanding what users need is essential. But what happens when those users finally have the opportunity to experience technology themselves? Do their expectations remain the same?
Within the MOTIVATE XR project, this question has become particularly relevant during the transition from the initial identification of industrial user requirements to their subsequent revision following Beta testing. Building on Deliverable D3.3, which established the initial User Needs, User Requirements, and industrial Use-Case Scenarios, the second release, D3.4 – Industrial User Requirements and Use-Case Scenarios V2, coordinated by CETMA, provides an updated and more mature understanding of what industrial users actually need from Extended Reality (XR) technologies. The most important outcome is not simply an updated list of requirements. It is evidence that users need to evolve as users become more familiar with technology, its capabilities, and its limitations.
From Ex-Ante Expectations to Ex-Post Understanding
The initial analysis carried out in D3.3 followed a structured user-centred methodology, involving interviews, questionnaires, workshops, and prioritisation activities across five industrial pilots.
This ex-ante phase was fundamental to identifying operational challenges, collecting expectations, and translating them into initial User Needs and Requirements. However, at this early stage, users were often describing what they expected an XR solution to do, without necessarily having direct experience of the tools being developed. The availability of the MOTIVATE XR Beta platform created the opportunity to revisit those assumptions. Through direct interaction with the tools and further exchanges with industrial partners, users developed a clearer understanding of both their operational scenarios and the technology itself.
This ex-post review, conducted after Beta testing, revealed that some initially identified needs were no longer relevant; others required clarification, and additional needs had emerged. In other words, experiencing technology does not simply help users evaluate it: it also helps them better understand their own needs.
Discovering Hidden Needs and Reconsidering Priorities
One of the most valuable findings of this second iteration was the identification of needs that had not been fully recognised during the initial analysis. These latent user needs became more visible as industrial partners explored the XR tools and reflected on how they could be integrated into real working environments. The analysis highlighted aspects related to usability, visual clarity, interaction timing, XR session management, operational continuity, and the overall sustainability of use.
Another important distinction emerged between two complementary user perspectives:
- Authoring: users who create, configure, update, and manage XR content and procedures.
- Experiencing: users who interact with XR content during training, maintenance, or operational activities.
While both groups interact with the same technological ecosystem, their needs can be substantially different. Understanding this distinction allowed the consortium to refine requirements across the entire XR content lifecycle. The revision also helped distinguish between desirable functionalities and those that deliver value in industrial practice.
For example, in the home appliance pilot, an initial need to visualise a three-dimensional spare parts list within the XR experience was removed after further clarification of the maintenance workflow. Since spare parts are already prepared before the intervention, this functionality was no longer considered necessary.
This illustrates an important lesson: improving a technological solution does not always mean adding more features. Sometimes, it means understanding which features are truly needed.
Aligning User Expectations with Technical Development
The revision process also played an important role in strengthening the connection between industrial expectations and technical development. By reviewing the original User Needs and consolidating the corresponding User Requirements, the consortium established a clearer and more consistent foundation for the functional specifications of the MOTIVATE XR platform. Each User Requirement was associated with an appropriate verification approach, helping ensure that the requested functionalities can be assessed during subsequent validation activities.
This process also supported more informed prioritisation, taking into account the actual importance of each need for industrial users. The result is a more realistic alignment between what companies expect, what users need, and what technology can meaningfully deliver.
Continuous User Involvement: A Key Lesson Learned
One of the main lessons learned from this experience is that user involvement should not be limited to the initial requirements collection phase.
Continuous and active engagement with industrial stakeholders, including operators, trainers, technicians, and technology developers, is essential throughout development, testing, and refinement.
This iterative interaction creates opportunities to identify misunderstandings, reconsider assumptions, discover overlooked requirements, and progressively improve the relevance of the proposed solutions. It also helps bridge the gap between technological innovation and industrial applicability, reducing the risk of developing functionalities that are technically interesting but poorly aligned with everyday operations.
A Methodology Worth Reusing
The transition from D3.3 to D3.4 confirmed the value of the user-centred methodology adopted by CETMA and the MOTIVATE XR consortium. Rather than considering requirements as fixed inputs defined at the beginning of a project, the methodology treats them as evolving elements that should be revisited as technological maturity and user awareness increase.
The combination of initial needs assessment, structured prioritisation, direct experimentation, and subsequent revision has proved particularly valuable for aligning user expectations with realistic technical solutions.
For CETMA, this represents a methodological lesson extending beyond MOTIVATE XR: the approach offers a valuable reference for future research and industrial innovation projects involving emerging technologies.
Conclusion – Better Understanding Leads to Better Solutions
The evolution from D3.3 to D3.4 demonstrates that successful user-centred innovation requires more than listening to users at the beginning of a project. It requires returning to those users, allowing them to experience the technology, and using what they learn to challenge and refine the original assumptions. By combining ex-ante expectations with evidence gathered after practical experimentation, MOTIVATE XR has strengthened the connection between industrial needs, user requirements, and technical development.
Ultimately, the objective is not simply to develop more advanced XR tools, but to create solutions that are more usable, more relevant, and better suited to real industrial environments.
Because the best way to understand what users need is to keep learning together with them.
References
The methodology adopted builds on established research in user-centred design (Lindgaard et al., 2006; Kujala et al., 2008) and applies prioritisation techniques such as the AHP (Tavana et al., 2023), ensuring that the most relevant user needs guide development.
Author
CETMA
Sarah De Cristofaro is a researcher at CETMA – European Research Centre for Technologies, Design and Materials, where she contributes to research and innovation projects focused on user-centred design, industrial applications and emerging technologies. Within the MOTIVATE XR project, she is involved in the analysis and refinement of industrial user needs, user requirements and use-case scenarios, supporting the development of XR solutions aligned with real operational contexts.
