Application of Smart Technologies for Assessing Users’ Well-Being for Immersive Design Strategies: A State-of-the-Art Review

As never before, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of digital design strategies on the user’s well-being has been questioned. However, a research branch astride digital design and neuroscience able to overcome net discipline borders to analyse users’ well-being seems to be lacking. Today mainly qualitative data are used in the design field for the investigation of users’ quality experience. Although fundamental, they also have great disadvantages such as unanswered questions, unconscientious responses, and respondents’ biases. As such, a systematic state of art review is presented to find methodologies and tools currently used in medicine to identify the impact of digital design strategies (XR) on users’ well-being through quantitative and objective data. The main technologies used for this purpose have been synthesized in a schematic chart by reporting the principal related biometric data (skin conductivity, heart rate metrics and breathing rates), as well as other technologies such as video/images/audio analysis based on sensors and machine learning to reach out mass numbers. In conclusion, gaps and future applications of this innovative approach within the virtual environment have been identified by the authors