Affordance-Experimentation: Eine Fallstudie zur Entwicklung von Virtual-Reality-Anwendungsfällen im Unternehmenskontext

In recent years, technological advances have made virtual reality more affordable and user-friendly, encouraging companies to increasingly consider the adoption of this technology. However, the technology experienced its upswing through the entertainment and gaming industry, which is why companies face the challenge of generating meaningful use cases. According to the affordance-experimentation-actualization theory, an experimentation phase is necessary, especially for emerging technologies, to discover possible action potentials and generate use cases. This article presents the results of a case study in a company that has been in the experimentation phase during the study. Through interviews with eight employees and a sales partner, three action potentials for virtual reality in the corporate context and one previously unknown activity of the experimentation phase were identified. Thus, the study extends previous research on the experimentation phase and identifies differences compared to other innovative technologies examined in prior studies. For companies, the study offers valuable insights into how to successfully design the experimentation phase in preparation for the implementation of virtual reality.