User experience evaluation in immersive environments: A systematic review of state-of-the-art
Al-Amin Abdulhamid, Khairul Shafee Kalid, Savita K. Sugathan, Ahmad Shahrul Nizam Isha, Gehad Mohammed Ahmed Naji, Muhammad Bala Umar, Hafiz Abdulhamid · Array · 2026
ABSTRACT Immersive Environments (IMEs) have gained increasing prominence in industry and academia due to their ability to deliver rich and distinctive interactive experiences. User Experience (UX) has emerged as a pivotal quality factor influencing user behavior, satisfaction, and retention. Systematic UX evaluation is therefore essential for understanding user perceptions and improving the design quality of immersive systems. Although existing reviews provide useful foundational insights, they do not offer a comprehensive synthesis of recent developments or a consolidated analysis of the technical and demographic insights. This Systematic Literature Review (SLR) addresses this gap by synthesizing state-of-the-art developments in UX evaluation for IMEs, focusing on technical contributions, demographic profiling, application domains, device technologies, evaluation methods, and unresolved challenges. Following PRISMA guidelines, 57 relevant studies published between 2019 and 2026 were selected from five major digital databases. The findings indicate a growing emphasis on investigative and evaluation-oriented studies. Head-mounted displays were the dominant device technology, whereas non-handheld interaction methods remain comparatively underexplored. Education and training emerged as the leading application domain, highlighting the need for broader domain diversity. Furthermore, the analysis reveals a strong reliance on self-report methods, underscoring the need for more multimodal evaluation approaches that integrate observational and physiological evidence. Despite these advances, several persistent challenges continue to constrain the robustness of UX evidence in IMEs, including theoretical fragmentation, limited generalizability, technological constraints, and methodological inconsistency. This SLR provides actionable directions for strengthening future evaluation practices and improving the rigor, comparability, and practical relevance of UX research in IMEs.