Too Immersive for the Field? Addressing Safety Risks in Extended Reality User Studies

2026-02-26

AI Summary

This study addresses the overlooked risks—such as physical safety hazards, psychological stress, and accessibility barriers—in extended reality (XR) user research conducted in real-world settings like homes, schools, and public spaces, where unified ethical safety guidelines are currently lacking. It presents the first systematic investigation into the ethical and safety challenges of in-the-wild XR studies, integrating human-computer interaction theory, XR technologies, and field research methodologies to develop a comprehensive safety ethics framework. The work identifies key risk categories and proposes actionable safety guidelines alongside a consistent, cross-contextual practice framework. This contribution offers both theoretical grounding and practical tools to enhance the safety, inclusivity, and ethical compliance of XR field research.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy
• Humans and AI: User Experience and Usability

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Responsible Web: Fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics of web technologies

Abstract

Extended Reality (XR) technologies are increasingly tested outside the lab, in homes, schools, and public spaces. While this shift enables more realistic user insights, it also introduces safety challenges that are often overlooked. Physical risks, psychological distress, and accessibility issues can be increased in field studies and unsupervised testing, such as at home or crowdsourced trials. Without clear instructions, safety decisions are left to individual researchers, raising questions of responsibility and consistency. This position paper outlines key safety risks in XR user testing beyond the lab and calls for practical strategies that are needed to help researchers run XR studies in a safe and inclusive way across different environments.

Problem

• Extended Reality
• safety risks
• field studies
• user testing
• accessibility

Innovation

• Extended Reality
• field studies
• safety risks
• user testing
• research ethics