Standards for Augmented Reality - A User Experience Perspective

An introduction to UX in AR

1. STANDARDS FOR AUGMENTED REALITY A USER EXPERIENCE PERSPECTIVE User Interfaces and Human Factors By with contributions from PEREY Research & Consulting
2. User Experience In AR  A person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service  All technological aspects discussed here have a direct or indirect effect on UX in AR – so UX concerns all ‘players’ of AR  So, why not establish a recommendation (standard?) for UX?  Why not define ‘ideal AR’ and use it as a reference to build better products and services  Why not use this reference as a theoretical background for assessments on UX in AR scenarios
3. A UX Framework Enables us to define standards for…  UX requirements in various AR flavours (use cases)  ideal scenarios that serve as a goal for innovators, developers, researchers (ideal AR)  health & safety regulation  security and integrity standards  assessment and evaluation methodologies
4.  We have started creating such a framework…  …but we need more feedback and assessments to fill in the gaps! A UX Framework primer…
5. Use Cases  Guide, Create & Play (already defined by the community)  UX requirements per use case have common elements  ...but can also be different  Combination of use cases may also introduce additional requirements to achieve complex goals  Definition of the above must be derived from experimentation with representative paradigms from each use case.
6. Input - I  Visual : CV, marker-based, marker-less etc.  Ease of use, responsiveness, accuracy  Privacy & social comfort of usage  Transparency to the user (say, for passive CV)  Occlusion, lighting conditions, required fidelity  Calibration  Auditory: direct voice commands, passively inferring user’s context (say from ambient noise levels, etc)  Ease of use, responsiveness, accuracy  Noise cancellation
7. Input - II  Kinæsthetic: gestures using CV, ‘smart’ textiles, Kinect etc.  Ease of use, responsiveness, accuracy  Use of additional apparatus and equipment (for example Kinect)  Environmental sensors, wearables, environmental factors (lighting, interference etc. )  Error compensation and reversing operations, design for error  Standardisation of gestures like sign language  Abstraction of ‘real world behaviour’ – simplification of tasks  Calibration
8. Input - III  Tactile: chord keyboards, joysticks, touch-screens/pads  Ease of use, responsiveness, accuracy  Obtrusiveness  Sensory modalities: Active, Inertial, Hybrid (‘active badges’, gyros etc)  Ease of use, responsiveness, accuracy  Need for installation, additional equipment thus obtrusiveness considerations  In case of hybrid seamless switching between/combination of modalities
9. Output - I  Visual – HMDs, Handhelds, 3D screens, 2D/3D content  Probably the most important yet challenging interface  Type of information ranges from simple annotations and crude abstractions to realistic 3D reconstructions and humanoid modelling  High fidelity and realism not always needed  Health and safety implications – for example ocular and non-ocular symptoms of HMD use  Resolution, Field-of-View, Depth-of-view, focus, inter-ocular distance, focus, size, brightness, contrast, light-additive systems failing at ‘black’, arm position for handhelds  Registration – angular and positional errors become apparent easily  Synthetic world stability, ‘shake’, spatial consistency  Ergonomic considerations, ease of use, obtrusiveness, FPS
10. Output - II  Auditory  Simpler to implement as we can easily create high-fidelity, directional sound  Relatively non-obtrusive gear (headphones etc)  Privacy & social comfort of usage considerations  Health and safety aspects  Haptic  Rare examples – mostly force feedback encountered in gaming console controllers and some medical applications  The ‘ideal AR’ would include haptics to enhance considerably the sense of being there
11. Context Awareness  Contextual and in situ nature of AR intertwined with Context Awareness  Extracting location, posture, direction of gaze, intentions, environmental features, tethering has direct consequence on synthesis of composite world  Where are you, who are you with, what resources are nearby  Human perception is extremely sensitive to discrepancies  Specific consideration must be given to assessing CA from users, irrespectively of the underlying mechanics mentioned before
12. Health & Safety  Any standard concerning globally a technology needs to cater for health & safety  HMD usage symptoms, antennae's radiated emissions etc  Obtrusive devices and disruptive output can lead to accidents  Wearable devices need to adhere to consumer electronics regulations
13. Integrity, Privacy & Security  Nowadays AR currently remains a ‘personal’ experience  However we live in the era of social interaction and MMOs with enormous implications regarding interaction  The ultimate incarnation of the Play use case is a shared virtual environment  Shared information must be consistent for all participants  Private information must be unreachable  Users must choose what to share and what not
14. Sense of Immersion  Probably the most ‘inclusive’ term for Ux4AR  Sense of being there, sense of presence varies with each use case  It is worthwhile to explore the correlation of immersion to assessment scores and specific (aforementioned) issues to determine their impact on designs  Many have tried to define metrics for it  Explore alternatives or define new and subsequently standardise.
15. The next step  Assess the proposed theoretical framework and enhance & streamline it with feedback from the community  Devise assessment methodologies for specific use cases based on the framework  Conduct said assessments with field studies, questionnaire- based evaluations etc  Determine underlying factors and correlations of aspects that affect Ux4AR  Re-evaluate framework with findings  Rinse and repeat…
16. Summary  We must overcome the ‘wow!’ point and offer a consistently appealing experience  We must prove AR is not a gimmick or tech-hype by introducing new interaction paradigms and push the envelope when it comes to implementations  In order to do that we must ‘formulate’ UX requirements and assessments  A UX framework can serve as a roadmap for development, a reference for standardisation and a methodology for assessment  Enhancing Ux4AR will enhance the field’s technological and marketing reality
17. Thank You