Headsets create presence and spatial understanding — they also add device management, facilitation and accessibility questions that a browser link simply doesn’t have. Sometimes that trade-off is worth it. Sometimes it isn’t.

Separate the learning problem into four parts: the cue someone must notice, the decision they must make, the action they must perform, and the feedback they need. How much space, movement and physical handling matter usually points straight to the right format.

Browser-based branching scenarios

Suit judgment problems — responding to a customer, choosing an escalation path, managing an exception. The advantage is reach and easy updating across a distributed team; the limitation is that it can’t reproduce spatial presence or physical action.

Interactive 3D

Lets someone explore a product or process from a screen — useful for equipment familiarisation or unbuilt spaces where full immersion helps but isn’t essential.

Augmented reality

Earns its place when digital information genuinely needs to sit inside the real world — overlaying a process, guiding an inspection, placing an object at scale. Its usefulness drops fast in glare, noise or a network-constrained site, whatever the demo looked like in a controlled room.

Virtual reality

Is strongest when someone needs to scan an environment, move through a sequence or rehearse something dangerous or inaccessible. The case weakens fast when the task is mainly reading or choosing between text options — high visual fidelity doesn’t rescue weak instructional design.

Physical and instructor-led practice

Still has to own real tool resistance, material behaviour and formal assessment — an instructor sees hesitation and adapts in ways a fixed build can’t.

A practical selection test

• Choose web when reach and decision logic matter more than presence
• Choose interactive 3D when exploration and explanation matter
• Choose AR when the real environment has to stay visible
• Choose VR when spatial presence and safe rehearsal are central
• Choose physical practice when real handling or verified competence is required

MaskMantle designs across VR, AR, interactive 3D and web, starting from the decision that needs practising rather than a device chosen in advance.

Choose the format. Not the fashion.