This paper presents an empirical evaluation of mode switching techniques for Augmented Reality (AR) headsets. We conducted a quantitative analysis exploring five techniques for switching between modes: a hardware button press, 3D virtual button press, non-preferred hand, reach depth, and voice. Results from our study support the benefits of non-preferred mode switching, showing non-preferred and depth mode switching to be faster than voice and the virtual button techniques. Depth, however, had significantly more errors compared to the other techniques. Our work lays a foundation for developers to design new mode switching techniques and guides the design of current hardware solutions around choosing techniques that best compliment application use.

Jesse Smith, Isaac Wang, Julia Woodward, and Jaime Ruiz. 2019. Experimental Analysis of Single Mode Switching Techniques in Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the 45th Graphics Interface Conference on Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2019 (GI ‘19). Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, Waterloo, CAN, Article 20, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.20380/GI2019.20

@inproceedings{Smith:2019:10.20380/GI2019.20,
 author = {Smith, Jesse and Wang, Isaac and Woodward, Julia and Ruiz, Jaime},
 title = {Experimental Analysis of Single Mode Switching Techniques in Augmented Reality},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2019},
 series = {GI 2019},
 year = {2019},
 issn = {0713-5424},
 isbn = {978-0-9947868-4-5},
 location = {Kingston, Ontario},
 numpages = {8},
 doi = {10.20380/GI2019.20},
 publisher = {Canadian Information Processing Society},
 keywords = {augmented reality, mode switching, mode errors},
}