Perceived Usability and User Experience in Augmented Reality Tools for the Treatment of Spider Phobia

The use of augmented reality (AR) environments to treat small animal phobias is an alternative to traditional in vivo exposure treatments that allow supporting the therapy through the virtual, gradual and controlled exposure of the patient to the animal to which he/she is afraid. In this paper, we compare three different AR tools used in exposure therapy for spider phobia with thirty users; namely, a mobile haptic AR system, an immersive AR environment, and a non-immersive AR environment. An in vivo (direct) interaction with a real spider was also used as a reference during the comparison. To compare these four conditions, each subject participated in an exposure therapy session using all of them. The perception of usefulness and experience of use of each of the tools were evaluated using a Technology Acceptance Model on-exit questionnaire and the results were obtained through indirect observation analysis. The results showed that there are no significant differences regarding the perception of usefulness among the three applications and that the haptic AR system generated the least discomforting experience of use.