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AURA

a qualitative framework for evaluating immersive and experiential work

What Is the AURA Framework?

AURA is a framework developed by Katrina Lat. It was first debuted at FITC Toronto in April 2025. 

 

AURA is:

  • a qualitative framework for evaluating immersive and experiential work

  • designed to be usable regardless of the quantity of work an individual has experienced. 

 

AURA is not:

  • a system that requires deep industry literacy to use “correctly”

  • a structure for declaring universal winners and losers

Why AURA Exists

I began developing the AURA framework while preparing for a talk I gave at FITC Toronto in April 2025 regarding the correlation (or lack thereof) between technology and quality in immersive work. While compiling the presentation, I realized that while technology is easy to quantify, it’s much harder to objectively measure whether something is quality.

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In the world of books, film, television, or music, it’s relatively easy for an individual to develop a well-calibrated sense of taste. One can read, watch, and listen across genres from the safety of their own home. Becoming a self-proclaimed critic is neither location nor cost-prohibitive.

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In contract, the vast majority of immersive experiences are:

  • geographically bound

  • difficult to encounter in high volume from a single location

  • only available for limited runs

  • expensive to access

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The challenge is further exacerbated by the fact that “immersive” is now used to refer to an enormous range of work. It might be an escape room, walkabout theatre piece, a projector-based installation, a spa ritual, VR documentary, museum exhibition, a branded activation, dome film, a restaurant opening whose PR decided to make use of a buzzy term… the list goes on and on. These works are fundamentally different, and yet we might talk about them using this same “immersive” label. 

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As a result, our collective sense of the quality continuum is far less synchronized than it is in mass media. AURA emerged from a desire to bridge that gap:

  • to give people the tools and vocabulary to articulate what they experienced 

  • to allow meaningful comparison between very different kinds of work

  • to help people talk about perceived immersive quality even when their personal reference points differ

The AURA Framework at a Glance

AURA is built around four interdependent pillars:

  • Agency is the degree to which a participant’s choices meaningfully affect their experience

  • Universe is the coherence of the world being presented

  • Resonance is the degree to which an experience connects with an individual

  • Artistry is the quality of craft embedded in the work

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Or, put simply:

  • Agency is about what you can do

  • Universe is about where it takes you

  • Resonance is about what lands

  • Artistry is about how it’s made

Agency

Agency is the degree to which a participant’s choices meaningfully affect their experience.

 

When an experience offers an individual a high degree of Agency, their decisions shape their journey in a way that feels intentional and consequential. 

 

The presence of Agency is one of the defining factors in work that is labeled as “immersive”. 

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When thinking about Agency, I often ask myself questions like:

  • To what extent did my choices shape how I experienced the work?

  • Did my actions feel meaningful or merely procedural?

  • Could someone else have had a meaningfully different experience than I did?

  • Was Agency clearly invited, quietly available, or something I had to assert myself?

  • Did the experience acknowledge my presence or actions in any way?

  • What role did I occupy within the experience, and did I enjoy inhabiting it?

  • Did I feel like a participant, a helper, a bystander, or a central character?

  • Was I aware of my own decision-making in the moment?

  • Were there moments where Agency was limited, and did that feel intentional?

  • Did exercising Agency deepen my immersion, or pull me out of the experience?​

Universe

Universe is the coherence of the world being presented

 

This comprises of more than just visual aesthetics. Rather, it’s the sum of everything that tells you what kind of reality you’re in and how to exist within it. 

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A strong universe might include:

  • a clear narrative or thematic throughline

  • environmental design that supports tone and intention

  • performers who understand their role within the world

  • Something about safety

  • clear rules for interaction

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A universe can be minimal, abstract, or even intentionally empty. What matters is whether it makes an intentional promise and upholds it consistently.

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When thinking about Universe, I often ask myself questions like:

  • What kind of world was this experience asking me to believe in?

  • How clearly were the rules of that world communicated, implicitly or explicitly?

  • What promises did the experience make before it began, and were they kept?

  • Did I understand how I was meant to exist inside this world?

  • Did the world remain consistent across space, time, performers, and mechanics?

  • Where did the illusion hold strongest, and where did it weaken?

  • Did moments of confusion feel intentional, or accidental?

  • Did I feel physically and psychologically safe enough to stay immersed?

  • Did the experience maintain my trust throughout?

  • How did the world end, and did that ending feel earned?​

Resonance

Resonance is the degree to which an experience connects with an individual.

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This connection may be emotional, aesthetic, intellectual, nostalgic, playful, comforting, or simply enjoyable. Resonance does not require depth, challenge, or meaning, only that something lands.

 

Of all the pillars in the AURA framework, resonance is the most variable and dependent on the individual. Two people can walk through the same experience, make similar choices, and still leave with wildly different emotional responses, and both can be valid. Resonance acknowledges that art is subjective, and that our reactions to it are shaped by who we are, what we’ve lived through, and what we bring with us into a space. Rather than trying to eliminate subjectivity, this framework makes space for it.

 

When thinking about Resonance, I often ask myself questions like:

  • Did this experience connect with me on any level?

  • What did I feel during the experience, and what do I feel now?

  • How much of my response came from the work itself versus what I brought into it?

  • Did anything linger with me after it ended?

  • Did the experience reinforce, challenge, or complicate how I already see the world?

  • Did I care about what was happening?

  • Did I feel respected in how the experience handled emotion and meaning?

  • Would someone else reasonably have resonated with this very differently than I did?

  • Did this experience change anything for me, even slightly?

  • How do I describe this experience now, in my own words?

Artistry

Artistry is the quality of craft embedded in the work

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This is the accumulated skill, care, taste, and decision-making that comes from people who know what they’re doing. It applies whether the craft in question is scenic fabrication, lighting design, narrative structure, sound design, choreography, performance, costuming, interaction design, or any of the many cross-disciplinary skills needed to bring immersive work to life. ​

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When thinking about Artistry, I often ask myself questions like:

  • Did this experience feel thoughtfully and intentionally made?

  • Could I sense care, skill, and attention in the execution?

  • Did the creative choices feel coherent and aligned with each other?

  • Did the work know what it was trying to be?

  • Did any elements feel sloppy, rushed, or out of place?

  • Did the artistry deepen my engagement with the experience?

  • Did the work feel distinctive, or overly familiar?

  • Did limitations feel embraced through ingenuity rather than exposed as flaws?

  • Did technical polish serve the idea, or distract from it?

  • Did the level of craft match the ambition of the idea?

AURA AS A CRITICAL TOOL

I developed the AURA framework as a way to organize my own thinking when writing about immersive work. Keeping the four pillars of AURA in mind gives me a consistent structure for sorting through complexity and helps me identify what actually matter in a piece.​

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Rather than collapsing everything into a single judgment, AURA helps me separate different dimensions of the experience. It allows me to articulate where agency was meaningful, whether the universe held together, what resonated for me personally, and how craft showed up across disciplines. Just as importantly, it helps me acknowledge subjectivity without letting my critique become vague. By naming how and where an experience succeeded or struggled, AURA gives me clearer language for explaining my perspective while leaving room for others to have arrived at different, equally valid conclusions.

AURA AS a Consulting & Advisory Tool

AURA can be especially useful when working with creators, producers, investors, and cross-functional teams. As the framework is intentionally simple, it quickly provides individuals with a shared language. You don’t need to be an immersive expert to participate in the conversation. You just need to understand the ingredients.

 

It might be used to

  • help teams articulate what they’re prioritizing

  • identify misalignments early in development

  • diagnose audience feedback without defensiveness

  • reframe disagreements as tradeoffs rather than failures
     

It works across budgets, formats, and intentions. It applies to escape rooms, theatre, museums, branded activations, installations, and things that don’t fit neatly into any category.

closing thoughts

The AURA framework is not a scorecard, a checklist, or a prescription for what immersive work should be. Rather, it is a shared language for thinking about how experiences function, why they land differently for different people, and where their strengths lie.

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Immersive experiences are difficult to compare, describe, and critique, especially given their regional nature, limited runs, and wide variation in form. AURA exists to help bridge that gap, offering a way for audiences, creators, and collaborators to speak more clearly about what they experienced, what worked, and why. Most people will never see hundreds of immersive experiences, and they shouldn’t have to in order to participate meaningfully in the conversation.

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Used lightly, this framework can help people articulate their reactions, make more informed choices about the work they engage with, and have more productive conversations across disciplines. Used deeply, it can support more intentional design, clearer communication, and better alignment between creative ambition and audience experience.

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At its best, AURA is meant to invite participation rather than gatekeep it. The more we share language, the more we can learn from one another, and the stronger the ecosystem of immersive work becomes as a result.

The key is PAWSSWORD

psst, if you've no idea why this is here, try checking the About section on my website

Written & Developed by Katrina Lat

© Katrina Lat
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