Improving visual search performance in augmented reality environments using a subtle cueing approach: Experimental methods, apparatus development and evaluation.

Abstract

Traditionally, Augmented Reality (AR) visualizations have been designed based on intuition, leading to many ineffective designs. For more effective AR interfaces to be designed, user-based experimentation must be performed. However, user study methods and apparatuses to conduct such controlled experiments are lacking in the AR community. In this dissertation, such a set of empirical experiment methods and an apparatus system have been developed for use in AR environments, in the hope that this work will guide future researchers in performing such experiments. To evaluate the contributions, the work has been applied in experiments which addressed a classical problem in AR caused by the use of explicit cues for visual cueing in Visual Search tasks. The work demonstrated that through these experiments, it is possible to rigorously and effectively evaluate a novel method of AR visualization called Subtle Cueing which provides a solution to problems caused by explicit cueing.