Navigating the New Realities: Unpacking VR, AR, and MR for Lasting Impact

Forget the headset hype: real learning impact starts with a clear problem, a focused outcome, and a modality that actually fits the job. We dig into how to choose between VR for safe practice, AR for in-the-flow guidance, and MR for complex 3D collaboration—then show exactly how to design the actions, decisions, and feedback loops that change behavior on the job. No fluff, no jargon, just a practical roadmap for building immersive experiences that matter.

If you’ve been looking for a practical playbook to design with purpose, not pixels, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a quick review to tell us your top takeaway—and which modality you’re testing next.

🔗 Resources and Related Episodes:

If you’d like to explore today’s topic further, here are a few resources to check out:

📝 Interactive Resource

Immersive Modality Navigator: Explore a short, self-paced course that walks you through four key steps, making sure to choose the right modality, designing meaningful interactions without overwhelming learners, and planning how you’ll measure impact and pilot your first immersive experience.

📊 Research Report

AR | VR | MR | XR | Metaverse | Spatial Computing Industry Statistics Report 2025: This report, compiled by Horacio Torrendell, the founder and CEO at Treeview, shows how the spatial computing industry is experiencing strong growth across multiple market segments. 

🎧 Listen Next: Related Episodes

Episode 28: What is Cognitive Load and Why is it Important?: A practical guide to Cognitive Load Theory and why it matters in instructional design, with tips for managing mental effort so learners can focus on what truly counts.

Episode 44: Designing for Everyone: A Guide to Universal Design for Learning: An introduction to UDL principles and how to design from the start with variability in mind, so more learners can access and engage with your experiences.

Episode 65: Accessibility in Action: Inclusive Design for Every Learner: Practical strategies for designing with accessibility at the forefront—fr

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Purpose
• 1:04 VR, AR, & MR Quick Refresher
• 3:09 Choosing The Right Modality
• 5:17 Accessibility & Inclusion First
• 6:56 Objectives Before Interactions
• 8:21 Managing Cognitive Load In XR
• 9:50 Warehouse Safety Case Study
• 13:15 Designing The VR Hazard Module
• 15:07 Measuring What Matters
• 18:03 Start Small With A Pilot

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the Designing with Love Podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 91 of the Designing with Love Podcast. In this episode, I'll help you design with purpose, not pixels, by choosing the modality, crafting meaningful interactions, and capturing evidence of learning that lasts. So grab your notebook, a cup of coffee, and settle in as we explore this topic together. Back in episode 79, Top Emerging Technologies Shaping Instructional Design, we took a bird's eye view of emerging tools like VR, AR, and MR, and how they're starting to shape our work as learning designers. I have provided a link to the episode in the show notes for you. Today we're zooming in on those three and asking a different question. How do you actually decide when to use them, how to design for them, and how to prove they made a difference? If VR, AR, and MR still feel a little fuzzy to you, don't worry. You don't have to listen to episode 79 first. Think of that one as the overview and this episode as the deeper dive where we get practical about decisions, design moves, and measurement. Okay, so let's start with a super quick refresher, just to make sure we're all on the same page. Since I go into more detail about this in episode 79, I'll keep this light and in plain language. First, there's virtual reality, or VR, which is a fully immersive environment. Here, you put on a headset and the real world disappears. You're standing in a simulated space that could be a factory floor, a hospital room, or even the surface of Mars. Next is augmented reality, or AR, which adds a digital layer on top of the real world. Think of holding up your phone or tablet and seeing instructions, arrows, or labels overlaid on the space in front of you. Finally, there's mixed reality, or MR, which blends digital content with the real world in a way that allows you to interact with it. Digital objects are anchored in your environment, and then you can walk around them, manipulate them, and sometimes collaborate with others around the same 3D content. Now, rather than memorizing those definitions, I want you to think in terms of when each one shines. If you need people to safely practice in a high-risk or high cost environment, VR might be your best tool. If you need people to stay in the real environment and get guidance in the flow of work, AR becomes really powerful. If you need people to collaborate around complex 3D objects or spaces, MR can open up new possibilities. So the question isn't which headset is coolest. The question is which modality actually fits the problem I'm trying to solve? So before you even whisper the words VR, ARMR to your stakeholders, you need a clear learning problem and a clear outcome. Here you might ask yourself, what do learners need to do differently after this experience? Is it about reducing safety incidents, improving judgment under pressure, speeding up time to proficiency, or something else altogether? Then get honest about whether immersive tech is really needed. Could this be solved with a simpler option, like a video, a branching scenario, a job aid, or a short blended experience? If the answer is yes, you might not need VR ARMR at all. And that's actually a win for you as an instructional designer because you're protecting your organization's time, budget, and learners' energy. However, if immersion does add something essential, like realism, emotional impact, or the ability to practice safely, then it becomes worth exploring. At the same time, you have to factor in constraints such as do learners actually have access to devices or headsets? What are the IT and security policies like? And how much time can learners realistically spend in these experiences? Also, we can't forget about accessibility and inclusion. Not everyone can or should use a headset. Some learners may experience motion sickness, sensory overload, or other physical challenges. So you'll always want an equivalent pathway, maybe a 2D version on a screen, or a guided simulation that doesn't require a headset. If you'd like to go deeper on designing with all learners in mind, I highly recommend revisiting a couple of earlier episodes. I've also provided a link to these episodes in the show notes. In episode 44, a guide to universal design for learning, I walk through how to plan for variability from the very beginning of your design so more learners can access and engage with the experience in ways that work for them. Then in episode 65, accessibility in action, we get really practical about making learning experiences usable and welcoming for as many people as possible. Everything from captions and color contrast to alternate formats and assistive technology. Those two episodes pair really well with what we're talking about today, especially when you're citing who can safely and comfortably participate in VR, AR, or MR, and what equivalent options you'll provide. So the big takeaway here is don't start with we need VR. Start with we have a performance problem, and then ask, is immersive tech truly the right tool for this job? Once you've decided that VR, AR, or MR actually makes sense, the next question is what happens in there? Your goal isn't to impress people with fancy graphics. Your goal is to transform how they think, decide, and act. A helpful way to think about this is objectives first, interactions second. For each learning objective, ask what would that look like as an action in this environment? Here's some examples of how you could approach this. If the objective is to identify hazards, maybe learners have to spot and select unsafe conditions in a virtual warehouse. If the objective is to sequence steps, maybe they have to arrange key actions in order while they're standing in a simulated workplace. If the objective is to make judgment calls, maybe they face branching decisions where each choice leads to different outcomes or consequences. Next, think about story and context. Even a simple scenario can be powerful when it mirrors the realities your learners face. You don't have to create an elaborate video game plot. In fact, too much narrative can create cognitive overload. Instead, aim for a tight, relatable scenario. Who is the learner supposed to be? Where are they? What problem are they solving? What's at stake? You also want to manage cognitive load carefully in an immersive environment. Too many interactive elements, sounds, or visual effects at once can overwhelm your learners. If you want to dive deeper into cognitive load theory itself, you might enjoy going back to episode 28, what is cognitive load and why is it important? In that episode, I break down intrinsic, extraneous, and germane load and talk about why managing mental effort is such a big deal in learning design. I have also provided a link to that episode in the show notes for you. Here, in the context of VR, AR, and MR, we're applying those same ideas in 3D spaces. You might consider the following. Number one, limit the number of interactable objects or instructions learners see at one time. Number two, reduce extraneous load by removing decorative elements that don't support the task. Number three, use visual cues, arrows, or highlights to guide their attention to what matters most. And number four, offer a guided mode or short tutorial space the first time they enter, so they're not figuring out the controls and the content at the same time. And finally, think about comfort and psychological safety. Shorter sessions often work better, especially for beginners. Make sure learners know how to pause, exit, or ask for help. Give them a brief orientation so they know what to expect before the experience ramps up. Designing for VR, AR, and MR isn't just about building a cool world. It's about designing meaningful decisions and actions inside that world, while protecting learners from overload so they can actually focus on what matters. To make this scenario more concrete, let's walk through a real life style example of how you might navigate these choices on a project. Imagine you've been asked to redesign safety training for a busy distribution warehouse. Right now the training is a long slide deck, maybe a video, and a quick quiz at the end. Learners check the box, but incident rates are still higher than leadership would like. Leaders come to you and say, we want something cutting edge, maybe VR. Rather than jumping straight into headset shopping, you start by clarifying the core problem. After doing some initial research, you learn a few things. Number one, many incidents are related to forklift operation and pedestrian walkways. Number two, new hires struggle to recognize where the danger zones are. And number three, current training feels disconnected from the real environment. So you explore modality options. You might consider the following. Option one, VR simulation. New hires enter a virtual version of the warehouse. They walk through the space, identify hazards, watch how forklifts move, and practice making safe choices without any real world risk. Option two, AR performance support. Workers use a tablet or phone on the warehouse floor. AR overlays highlight safe walkways, no go zones, and proper signage as they move through the real environment. Option three, MR collaboration session. Supervisors and frontline staff gather around a digital twin of the warehouse. They can see routes, experiment with different layouts, and co-design improvements. After talking with stakeholders and looking at constraints, you decide to start with a focused VR hazard recognition module for new hires. That becomes the core immersive piece. In the VR experience, learners can do the following walk through a simulated warehouse environment, practice identifying unsafe conditions, like blocked exits, poor line of sight, or pedestrians in forklift paths, and then make go no-go decisions and see the consequences of mistakes in a safe way. To reinforce this, you pair the experience with a simple AR-inspired non-headset solution, like a digital or printed map of the actual warehouse that mirrors what they saw in VR. Supervisors can then walk new hires through the real space, connecting the simulation to day-to-day work. You can also design a short debrief guide for supervisors. Just a few questions they can ask. What hazards stood out to you the most in the VR simulation? Where do you see those same risks in this warehouse? What's one change you'll make starting today? In this example, you didn't just build VR for the sake of it. You did the following. Number one, started with a real performance problem. Number two, chose a modality that allowed safe practice. Number three, design specific interactions tied to objectives. And number four, wrapped it all with support before and after the headset comes off. So if we're going to invest in immersive experiences, we need more than that was cool as our data point. You've heard me say before that assessment planning should start early, not at the end. That's especially true for VR, AR, and MR. Here you can ask yourself two questions. What behaviors inside the experience will count as evidence of learning? Are you measuring accuracy, speed, judgment, collaboration, or something else? In a VR scenario, for example, you might ask, how many hazards learner correctly identify? How long it takes them to notice a problem, how many times they choose a safe versus unsafe route, and whether they improve on a second or third attempt. You can also capture data outside the headset, a short reflection such as what's one thing this experience changed about how you see your workplace? A quick application-focused quiz, not just definitions, but real world decisions. And then feedback from supervisors on whether behaviors are changing on the floor. Then you can zoom out to business performance metrics such as are incident rates going down? Are new hires reaching proficiency faster? Are there fewer errors or near misses? When you present results back to stakeholders, you can tell a simple story, such as, here's what's happening before, here's what we built and why. That's how you move from cool experiment to strategic learning solution. Alright, so now let's talk about how you can get started without feeling overwhelmed. You do not have to become a game engine developer overnight. Your role as an instructional designer is to ask smart questions, design in the learning flow, and advocate for the learner. A great way to begin is with a pilot, not a full program. Here you can choose one high impact use case, one core behavior you want to influence, and one main metric you'll track. Make sure to keep your scope tight. Maybe it's a single VR scenario, a short AR overlay, or a small MR collaboration exercise. The goal here is to learn, not to solve everything in one go. You'll often be partnering with internal IT teams, vendors, XR studios, or platform providers. When you talk to potential partners, don't just ask, can you make this look amazing? Instead, you can ask the following, how will this work for learners with different accessibility needs? What data can we capture? And how will we access it? How does this integrate with our existing systems? And what support will learners and facilitators need? Over time, you can create a simple decision checklist for your team that asks items such as, is immersive tech truly necessary here? Which modality, VR, AR, or MR, best supports the goal? How will we support learners before, during, and after the experience? And how will we know it worked? As you run pilots, document your lessons learned. What worked well? What surprised you? What would you change next time? That becomes your roadmap for future projects, and it positions you as a thoughtful guide, not just someone chasing the latest shiny tool. Before I conclude this episode, I want to leave you with one simple next step. So this episode turns into action, not just inspiration. This week, I'd like you to pick one project in your current or upcoming pipeline and ask yourself three questions. Number one, is VR, AR, MR truly needed here, or would a simpler solution work just as well? Number two, if immersive tech is a good fit, what's one critical decision or behavior learners could safely practice in that environment? Number three, how would I capture evidence that this experience actually made a difference? Make sure to write down your answers. And if you'd like to share them, I'd love to hear how you're navigating these new realities in your own context. You can connect with me on whatever channel you prefer, LinkedIn or through my website, and let me know what you're exploring. As I conclude this episode, I would like to share an inspiring quote from Bill Gates that helps us put all of this technology into perspective. Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important. As instructional designers, the same is true for VR, AR, and MR. The headsets and devices are not the heroes of the story. The learners are. So as you navigate these new realities, remember, you're not designing for hardware, you're designing for humans. When you lead with purpose, the pixels will follow. Thank you so much for joining me. Until next time, keep designing with intention, with curiosity, and of course, with love. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference, and I'm truly thankful for you.