Designing Critical and Secondary Information in Augmented Reality Headsets for Situational AwarenessJulia Woodward, Jesse Smith, Isaac Wang, Sofia Cuenca, Jaime Ruiz
Augmented Reality (AR) headsets are being used in different contexts (e.g., the oil industry, healthcare,
military); however, there is a lack of research and design recommendations on how information should be presented in
the AR headset displays, especially for aiding users’ situational awareness. We present two studies: one examining if
existing findings on the perceptibility of three types of visual stimulus (color, text, shapes) can be applied to AR headsets
for critical information, and one analyzing three different presentation styles (Display, Environment, Mixed Environment)
for textual secondary information in AR headsets. Our study on secondary information is an extension of prior work. For
critical information, we found that existing visual perception findings can be applied to AR headsets; there is a hierarchy
of salient visual features. Understanding that we can utilize prior work on visual features helps in designing salient
critical information for AR headset displays. For secondary information, we found that having the text in the Display
and Environment presentation styles assisted in participants’ perception and comprehension when compared to the
Mixed Environment presentation style. Based on our results, we provide design recommendations on how to present
critical and secondary information in AR headset displays to aid in users’ situational awareness, which is essential in
safety crucial domains such as the military.
Citation
Julia Woodward, Jesse Smith, Isaac Wang, Sofia Cuenca, Jamie Ruiz. 2023. Designing Critical and Secondary Information in Augmented Reality Headsets for Situational Awareness. Journal of Engineering Research and Sciences 2(3):01-15, 2023 doi: 10.55708/js0203001