More Arrows in the Quiver: Investigating the Use of Auxiliary Models to Localize In-View Components with Augmented Reality

The creation and management of content are among the main open issues for the spread of Augmented Reality. In Augmented Reality interfaces for procedural tasks, a key authoring strategy is chunking instructions and using optimized visual cues, i.e., tailored to the specific information to convey. Nevertheless, research works rarely present rationales behind their choice. This work aims to provide design guidelines for the localization of in-view and not occluded components, which is recurrent information in technical documentation. Previous studies revealed that the most suited visual cues to convey this information are auxiliary models, i.e., abstract shapes that highlight the space region where the component is located. Among them, 3D arrows are widely used, but they may produce ambiguity of information. Furthermore, from the literature, it is unclear how to design auxiliary model shapes and if they are affected by the component shapes. To fill this gap, we conducted two user studies. In the first study, we collected the preference of 45 users regarding the shape, color, and animation of auxiliary models for the localization of various component shapes. According to the results of this study, we defined guidelines for designing optimized auxiliary models based on the component shapes. In the second user study, we validated these guidelines by evaluating the performance (localization time and recognition accuracy) and user experience of 24 users. The results of this study allowed us to confirm that designing auxiliary models following our guidelines leads to a higher recognition accuracy and user experience than using 3D arrows.