Researching Usability Design and Evaluation Guidelines
for Augmented Reality (AR) Systems

Background


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Background:
Despite the ever-increasing power of computers and hardware rendering systems, the user interaction components of Virtual Environment (VE) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications are often poorly designed and are rarely evaluated with users. The vast majority of VE research and design effort has been on the development of visual quality and rendering efficiency. As a result, many visually compelling VEs are difficult to use and are, therefore, non-productive for their users.

Usability engineering and user-centered design are newly emerging facets of VE/AR design and evaluation. VE and AR researchers are becoming aware of traditional human computer interface (HCI) usability research and are beginning to apply and expand upon those methods. A few efforts have been reported to date; however, user-centered design and usability evaluation in VEs as a practice still lags far behind what is needed.

One important aspect of usability engineering and user-centered evaluation which is notably absent from current VE/AR efforts is the availability of established and recognized design and evaluation guidelines which specifically address usability. While a framework of usability characteristics has been created for VEs, the specific guidelines contained therein are not generally applicable to AR systems. Thus there is a need for design and evaluation guidelines which specifically address usability of AR systems.


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Joseph L. Gabbard Systems Research Center
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