Exploring the Preferences for Anticipated Use of Head-Mounted Displays

Head-mounted displays (HMDs) have been available for several years now, but uptake has been slow so far. The objective of this study was to gain insight into preferences on anticipated use in the early phase of HMDs with augmented reality. A survey was conducted among Dutch students following a nursing or social work education (N=100). Results showed that almost nobody had ever used a HMD. The areas of high interest of anticipated use of HMDs lies especially in receiving information regarding emergencies via the HMD if something is happening close to people's physical location and news and general information about physical location. For potential use functionalities, the most interesting functions reported by respondents were using HMDs for hands-free calling and receiving information about their behavioral patterns with regard to movement. The attitudes towards receiving non-visible cues in social interaction such as detecting stress levels or mood were all reported with a negative attitude. More than half of the respondents reported to have an intention to use a HMD in the future.