AI-Assisted XR Design and User Testing: Lessons from an Undergraduate Sustainability Project

Abstract: This paper examines the practical application and challenges of emerging AI-powered UX design tools in prototyping and testing Extended Reality (XR) interactions within an undergraduate Human-Computer Interaction course at Zayed University, UAE. As AI-driven design tools rapidly transform the landscape of user experience design, understanding their capabilities, limitations, and implications for XR development becomes increasingly critical for both educators and practitioners. This study documents a semester-long project where interdisciplinary undergraduate students from multiple colleges collaborated to design XR experiences aimed at promoting sustainability awareness and engaging diverse citizen groups in environmental action.The six students/authors detail their development process across three iterative laboratory sessions, employing AI-powered tools including generative design assistants, automated prototyping platforms, and AI-enhanced testing frameworks. Each iteration involved progressively refining XR worlds that immersed users in scenarios demonstrating the environmental impact of everyday actions and motivating behavioral change toward sustainability. The project challenged students to balance creative vision with the affordances and constraints of AI-assisted design tools while maintaining focus on user-centred design principles.Four significant challenges emerged during the UX-centric development process taught and adopted in this class.First, AI tools had substantial limitations in understanding XR-specific requirements. Traditional WIMP-based interfaces, XR interactions rely on spatial relationships, embodied interactions, presence, and multi-sensory feedback. Many AI-generated solutions were suited for conventional screen-based interfaces, requiring significant manual adjustments to create immersive XR experiences.Second, integrating AI tools into an iterative workflow presented unexpected complexities. While AI promised faster prototyping, maintaining design consistency, managing version control, and transitioning between AI-generated and manually refined elements demanded careful planning. The efficiency gains promised by AI tools were sometimes offset by the learning curve and workflow adjustments necessary for effective implementation.Third, user testing using traditional tools such as SUS, heuristic evaluation, psychometric tests, and thinking aloud protocol raised methodological concerns. Students questioned whether AI-generated prototypes had sufficient fidelity and interaction depth to elicit meaningful feedback, particularly regarding presence, immersion, and emotional engagement. This highlighted the need to reconsider validation methods when using AI in XR design.Fourth, the project’s environmental focus posed unique challenges. AI struggled to translate complex sustainability data into persuasive and actionable XR narratives. While it could process technical data quickly, the resulting visualizations were often too simplified or generic to motivate real behavioural change. Creating immersive XR worlds that were scientifically accurate, emotionally engaging, and visually compelling required substantial manual work, reducing the efficiency benefits promised by AI prototyping tools. The challenge was not just in visualization, but in meaningfully contextualizing complex real-world data within immersive and persuasive environments.Finally, ethical considerations were also central to the project. Professor Seffah addresses critical ethical concerns surrounding AI-powered design and prototyping tools in education and professional contexts. These concerns include questions of intellectual ownership, the possible loss of fundamental design skills, biases in AI training data that shape problematic design patterns, and the risk of diminishing human-centred design principles when algorithmic efficiency replaces empathetic user understanding.

Keywords: AI-powered Design Tools, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Extended Reality (XR), UX prototyping and Testing, Usability, Sustainability-Focused Design

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007168

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