Process documentation, in the broadest sense of the phrase, could mean anything from keeping a diary as a way of managing your busy schedule to logging procedures in order to evaluate success or failures in your workflow. It could even mean keeping a video diary of your gym workouts (ever heard of TikTok?).

Documentation reinforces best practices and helps to build a consensus around them. Without it, we're doomed to repeat our mistakes and slow our progress, whatever we happen to be doing.

There are a number of ways we can document processes, be it with a notebook, a video camera or a dictaphone. It's an age-old tradition with profound historic significance, originating in the dusty accounting ledgers of ancient Mesopotamia.

However, as workflows intensify and schedules bottleneck, it can be hard to keep tabs on processes as they occur while juggling a whole host of other jobs. Thankfully, technology is keeping pace with our work lives and making documentation easier and better than ever. 

In extended reality (XR) circles – us folks with goggles and headsets – this is nothing new. XR has revolutionised all sorts of everyday enterprise tasks – including remote assistance, training and, yes, documentation.

Let's look at some of the different ways XR can be used to document processes and enhance your workflow and practice.

Documenting medical data

For frontline health workers, the voice of the patient is the sine qua non of effective healthcare. Keeping first-hand records of any changes in their patients' physical or mental state is key to delivering effective treatments and making accurate clinical evaluations. 

But documenting and recording information often proves tricky and time-consuming. Take, for instance, community nurses who conduct home visits with elderly or vulnerable people. They, understandably, want to focus their attention on their patients, rather than filling in forms or pushing numbers around spreadsheets.

What healthcare professionals need is a way to record data passively. This way, they can keep their hands and their focus on the job at hand.

So, in 2022, the NHS began trialling smart goggles to assist in a variety of palliative and administrative procedures. With the patient's consent, nurses could use the goggles to livestream their visits to remote clinicians and utilise thermal imaging technology to monitor the healing of injuries.

And, importantly, the goggles could transcribe the conversation between the nurse and the patient directly to electronic medical records. 

This feature saved huge amounts of time by allowing nurses to focus on patient care and other administrative jobs. 

Video and audio documentation

The use of video documentation is nothing new. But head-mounted devices (HMDs) and XR headsets are making the process easier and more seamless than ever before.

The technology has numerous commercial and non-commercial use cases. Take the local bobby on the beat, for instance, who uses body cams to assist recall of potential criminal investigations. Or the average cyclist with a GoPro protecting herself against careless motorists.

Workers with assisted reality headsets can monitor and record complicated procedures that can be used for training purposes. For example, an engineer taking on an unusual critical repair job might record the process to improve the scope of available training resources for trainees.

You might ask, "What's the difference between an assisted reality headset and a standard body or head cam?"

Well, with the aR headset, the process can be documented multimodally. While the engineer records the process, a remote expert can view footage in real time and record a more detailed assessment. 

The two documents, those of the on-site engineer and the remote expert, may simultaneously diverge and reinforce one another, resulting in a stronger testament to the process that can inform similar work down the line. 

What's more, all of this can be done hands-free, allowing the worker to maintain focus and job proficiency at all times. And unlike other HMDs, XR headsets can capture the wearer's true point-of-view, thus documenting exactly what is seen. 

In these ways, knowledge can be ratified through a more comprehensive and expedient documentation process that allows multiple parties to converge on a given task. Documents are more accurate and multimodal, allowing companies to take greater control over their workflow.

Sandboxing and prototyping

XR also offers tools to help designers to document ideas, as well as to prototype and means test in virtual reality (VR)

With VR headsets, architects working on structural designs can quickly render three-dimensional models of their plans and invite multiple project partners to view their ideas in a realistic scaled environment.

Issues can be flagged up and documented within software much more quickly than on location. Often, relying on location-based documentation means paying for travel costs, as well as using auxiliary tools such as photographs and notepads. None of these tools is centralised into a single record that can be accessed anywhere, at any time and by anyone. 

With XR, documentation becomes a powerful way to track design timelines and keep everyone briefed and up-to-date on a project's status and requirements.

Are you looking to introduce detailed, accurate and innovative documentation processes into your business?  Visit our online store, where you can browse industry-leading XR wearables such as the Vuzix M4000 and RealWear HMT-1Z1.