The Double Diamond is probably the most well-known innovation framework. It consists of two diamonds, each with a cycle of divergence–convergence.
Our goal for last week and this week is to cover the first diamond – Discover & Define. (The second diamond – Develop & Deliver – is for the remaining weeks of the project.)
Through inspiration materials, we are discovering the challenges and opportunities in the future of Mixed Reality for work. A great place to start is by looking at insights from studies of the workplace and its transformations. Based on that, you can develop a future vision for how Mixed Reality can change it for the better.
Discover: research on future of work
Traditionally, designers go and talk to people affected by specific problems at the workplace. However, in this course, we do it second-hand by looking at inspiration materials and insights from research studies. Another source of inspiration could come from investigating work contexts first-hand, such as our own or our peers’ work situations. Where does MR offer a hammer to the nails in these work environments?
For a condensed catalogue of research on the future of work and its challenges and opportunities, I recommend browsing through Microsoft’s future of work reports.
These offer scientific insights on issues for work that relate to the inspiration lectures last week. Discover what the data shows about the recent major societal shifts to remote/hybrid work and AI adoption, with these three reports:
- The 2021 report, which focuses on how the shift to remote work (caused by the COVID-19 pandemic) affected different aspects of work, such as team collaboration and creativity.
- The 2022 report, which focuses on the post-pandemic transition to hybrid work and how it has permanently transformed the workplace experience.
- The 2025 report, which focuses on how AI is changing work.
In addition, there are a few recent papers on the future of work in MR that you can explore:
- Productivity in VR (2024)
- Working with Mixed Reality in Public: Effects of Virtual Display Layouts on Productivity, Feeling of Safety, and Social Acceptability (2025)
- Working in Extended Reality in the Wild: Worker and Bystander Experiences of XR Virtual Displays in Public Real-World Settings (2025)
- Augmented reality in-the-wild: Usage patterns and experiences of working with AR laptops in real-world settings (2025)
These insights can complement the inspiration sources shared in last week’s lectures. While exploring the breadth of these challenges, we should diverge in our ideas and cover as much ground as possible – to make sure we “get the right design, before getting the design right” (Buxton, 2007).
Define: envisionment and convergence
After discovering challenges in the workplace and mapping them to opportunities for MR, we can start to define a more specific vision and idea for an MR concept and prototype.
Firstly, envisionment involves selecting among our ideas to converge and define the specific problem and its solution space. The identified problem–solution should be articulated as a future vision for MR to address a problem in the workplace.
Secondly, during our envisioning, there will be unknowns, things that make us curious, or open questions we might have about this prospective future. The goal here is to start to articulate this curiosity. What are the open questions? What do you need to study in order to deliver the best solution to the problem at hand?
Finally, in looking for the right future solutions for a problem, we might also intentionally look for the wrong solutions – to begin to anticipate the future consequences of adopting a novel technology like Mixed Reality at the workplace.
This is where we are offering a wildcard for you to go a completely different path with your project: Any vision for the future of computing also comes with its consequences, and any vision has an anti-vision. In other words, a utopian vision can also have unanticipated dystopian outcomes. In our recently published paper, we argue for adopting a vision-critical perspective and propose to deliberately explore anti-visions of a formulated vision. If you’re interested, you can find the paper here: Grønbæk, J.E., Klokmose, C.N. and Hornbæk, K. How Do Future Visions Shape the Field of Human-Computer Interaction? (CHI 2026)
Once honed in on the vision or anti-vision – and the question(s) you want to address – you are ready to start developing.
Action now: discover & define
This week, you will put what you’ve learned into practice to do the above. You must find the nail (i.e., future of work issue) that goes with the hammer (or “hamMR”) you want to explore. You can start from either side – both are methodically fine from a research perspective. The point is that, when you converge, they should be a good match!
I anticipate that groups will struggle with different aspects of this envisionment part of your project. It is therefore highly recommended that you do the following:
- List all the relevant future of work problems/nails that you find motivating to solve through MR
- Document your experiments with using both paper and video for sketching ideas to address these problems.
- Write a short reflection on the pros and cons of these two different mediums for sketching MR experiences (this will be useful for your report later).
- Create many sketches of ideas to make sure you do not jump on the first idea that comes to mind. Use the entire pile to make your selection for the handin.
Doing the above is the best way to prepare for the the supervision meetings where we will go over your sketches and ideas to help converge on a specific future vision and MR prototype idea.