A Comparative Analysis of AR’s and MR’s Transformative Roles in the Context of Design Stages

Abstract

In the digital age of Industry 4.0, design education is shaped by technological and social transformations, increasingly adopting innovative approaches. As digital skills become vital, immersive technologies have emerged with new propositions for educational environments. By blurring the lines between the physical and digital worlds, these technologies provide new informational capabilities and experiences. They enhance users’ abilities to perform tasks in novel ways, significantly improving pedagogical learning experiences and creating new teaching opportunities in design education. Immersive technologies make design context-centered through alternative environments for knowledge production and sharing. In tandem with the changing world, context-centered design has increasingly become innovative, digital, dynamic, real-time, and data-driven. This study aims to reveal how Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies, which integrate with rather than detach from the physical environment, can transform design processes in a contextual manner. The objective is to evaluate the potential contributions of AR and MR to design processes through a context-centered approach using Cross’s model. In this model, the four-stage design process distinguishes design as a unique process, separate from art and science. This study comparatively evaluates the contributions of AR and MR to these stages using the PRISMA “systematic literature review” method. The findings indicate that these technologies support innovative contextual approaches across the design process stages. Offering new perspectives, this study concretizes its findings regarding the stages of the design process through the Stage-Technology Alignment Model (STAM).