Evaluating an Immersive Analytics Application at an Enterprise Business Intelligence Customer Conference

We reflect on an evaluation of an immersive analytics application (Tableau for visionOS) conducted at a large enterprise business intelligence (BI) conference. Conducting a study in such a context offered an opportunistic setting to gather diverse feedback. However, this setting also highlighted the challenge of evaluating usability while also assessing potential utility, as feedback straddled between the novelty of the experience and the practicality of the application in participants' analytical workflows. This formative evaluation with 22 participants allowed us to gather insights with respect to the usability of Tableau for visionOS, along with broader perspectives on the potential for head-mounted displays (HMDs) to promote new ways to engage with BI data. Our experience suggests a need for new evaluation considerations that integrate qualitative and quantitative measures and account for unique interaction patterns with 3D representations and interfaces accessible via an HMD. Overall, we contribute an enterprise perspective on evaluation methodologies for immersive analytics.