This text provides a scientific and in-depth perspective on the transformative power of XR technologies in the fashion field. The text gathers some of the outcomes of a doctoral dissertation entitled "Designing next-generation retail experiences via virtual reality and pseudo-haptics." Due to the transdisciplinary nature of the subject, wherein the fields of Retail, Fashion, and Interaction Design merge, the text represents a first attempt to systematize the design of XR applications in such a broad domain.
In particular, the text focuses on the academic contributions that support the development of the shopping experience with the integration of VR, AR, and MR technologies, which not only have great potential for deployment but are also revolutionizing customer interactions, enhancing in-store experiences, and driving e-commerce innovation.
First, the book reports an extensive exploratory review of the scientific literature on the topic, fragmented into its own and case studies, drawing knowledge from a wide range of disciplines. Thus, the book will delve into the analysis of the latest XR applications, from VTO and virtual mirrors to IVR stores, augmented apps, and Metaverse experiences. Second, the text suggests the methodological approach to implementing XR systems and how it changes depending on the fashion product categories considered.
Later, the book will focus on hardware and software components, the design of the UI, and the development of virtual agents. Particular attention will be given to the design of embodied virtual agents--user-controlled avatars that support virtual embodiment--and autonomous virtual agents, which function as social actors within the environment. These virtual representations allow users to interact with products, spaces, and other agents, shaping the perceptual, cognitive, and emotional dynamics of immersive shopping.
The Design of Shopping Experiences: How eXtended Reality Shapes Fashion is an essential read for designers in various fields, such as Retail, Fashion and Interaction Design, both in their academic studies and professional careers. Although the primary target audience consists of design researchers, it could also be useful for those who wish to approach the topic from an applied perspective, such as creators and visual artists, educators and trainers, retail and e-commerce managers, and marketing and digital strategy professionals.
Marina Ricci has been a Postdoctoral Researcher since 2024 at the Institute of Intelligent Industrial Technologies and Systems for Advanced Manufacturing (STIIMA-CNR), Bari-Amendola. Since 2026, she has also been teaching UX Design in the Master's Degree Programme in Design at the Polytechnic University of Bari, where she has been collaborating with the Design Research Group on several research projects since 2019.
In 2018, she received a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design with honors, and in 2020, a master's degree in Industrial Design with honors at the Polytechnic University of Bari. Her main research interests lie in the field of Interaction and Multisensory Design, with a particular focus on the use of innovative perceptual and interactive techniques for the design of technology-mediated experiences, such as virtual reality.
In 2024, she earned her Ph.D. in Industry 4.0 with a dissertation entitled "Designing next-generation retail experiences via virtual reality and pseudo-haptics", which was awarded as the Best National Doctoral Thesis (Virtual Prototyping section) by the Italian Association of Design and Methods for Industrial Engineering (ADM). Between 2022 and 2023, she was a Visiting Ph.D. Student at the Perceptual Intelligence Lab of TU Delft (The Netherlands), where she investigated novel approaches to integrating visuo-tactile stimuli into online retail experiences through pseudo-haptics. In 2025, she was awarded the CNR Short-Term Mobility Fellowship to conduct research at the University College London Interaction Centre (UK), focusing on the use of visual metaphors in VR for cross-modal communication.
In 2026, she will serve as Co-Chair of the Responsible Retail and Branded Environments Track at the DRS 2026 Edinburgh International Conference. She also received the Emerging Scholar Award at the Twentieth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices 2026 and was selected for the ADI Design Index 2024 with the project Fashion Augmented Information.
