Full title: Assessing User Apprehensions About Mixed Reality Artifacts and Applications: The Mixed Reality Concerns (MRC) Questionnaire
Published at: CHI 2024
DOI: 10.1145/3613904.3642631
Authors: Christopher Katins, Paweł W. Woźniak, Aodi Chen, Ihsan Tumay, Luu Viet Trinh Le, John Uschold, Thomas Kosch
The MRC Questionnaire is a nine-item instrument that assesses user apprehensions towards Mixed Reality (MR) artefacts and applications. While MR offers many benefits, it introduces novel challenges around security, privacy, social acceptance, and trust. The MRC captures users’ subjective concerns and perceptions — not objective risks — enabling researchers and designers to compare MR designs and identify potential areas of discomfort before deployment.
Security & Privacy (SP) — concerns about unauthorised access to the system and exposure or misuse of personal data.
Social Implications (SI) — concerns about blurring the boundary between virtual and real behaviour, influence on well-being, and appearing disconnected from one’s physical surroundings.
Trust (T) — trust in the security and anonymity of the system. All three Trust items are reverse-coded: higher agreement with the raw statements means higher trust, so reverse-scoring converts them so that higher scores always indicate higher concern.
Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree). Items marked (R) are reverse-scored.
| ID | Item | Subscale |
|---|---|---|
| SP1 | I am concerned about the possibility of non-authenticated individuals gaining access to this MR system. | Security & Privacy |
| SP2 | I am concerned about the potential exposure of sensitive data through this MR system to unauthorized parties. | Security & Privacy |
| SP3 | I worry that using this MR system might lead to my personal information being misused. | Security & Privacy |
| SI1 | I fear that with this MR system, it becomes increasingly hard to maintain a clear distinction between virtual behavior and real-life behavior. | Social Implications |
| SI2 | I am concerned about the potential of this MR system to influence my behaviors in ways that could be detrimental to my well-being. | Social Implications |
| SI3 | Using this MR system might make me appear disconnected from others in my physical environment. | Social Implications |
| T1 | I believe that only legitimate individuals can access this MR system. (R) | Trust |
| T2 | I am sure that this MR system is maintaining a secure environment. (R) | Trust |
| T3 | I am confident that my anonymity is protected by this MR system. (R) | Trust |
MRC = MRCSP + MRCSI + MRCT
where MRCSP = SP1 + SP2 + SP3
MRCSI = SI1 + SI2 + SI3
MRCT = T1R + T2R + T3R