Mixed Reality (MR)
AI & Emerging Tech
Digital objects that appear to share your physical space and respond to it.
In practice
Mixed reality sits between augmented reality, where content is overlaid, and virtual reality, where the world is replaced: in MR, digital things are anchored to real surfaces, occluded by real objects and reachable with your hands. It is the mode most headsets now default to, and it is where product visualisation and collaborative design work are heading.
Questions
What is Mixed Reality (MR)?
Mixed reality is an experience where virtual objects are placed in and interact with the real environment, with a sense that both occupy the same space.
Why do you use Mixed Reality (MR)?
It keeps you in the room while giving you things that cannot exist in it — a full-scale prototype on the table, a colleague's sketch on the wall.
How do you use/apply Mixed Reality (MR)?
Build for real surfaces and lighting, handle occlusion, design interactions for hands, and keep virtual content honest about scale so it reads as present.
When do you use Mixed Reality (MR)?
For previewing physical things before they exist, for collaborative review, and for guided work where instructions belong on the object itself.
Who uses Mixed Reality (MR)?
Product, interaction and spatial designers, and teams reviewing physical work remotely.
