Wearable vs Handheld vs Projection: Methods for Quantifying the Impact of AR Modality

Why is this Important?

Wearable AR displays provide frontline workers in AREA member companies with information without requiring the user to hold a display in their hands or look away from their tasks while obtaining instructions.
However, deploying display devices with entirely different form factors than those widely adopted, developing and deploying appropriate software, and integrating and training users on the new devices introduces time and expenses â€“ particularly if handheld displays have been well-integrated in the current procedures.
The AREA members need ways to measure and/or to calculate the investments and benefits of using different form factors in the workplace.

Tablets, mobile phones, and other handheld devices have been widely deployed in enterprise, including among frontline workers who use these devices to access contextually-relevant information while executing work procedures. Although hugely useful, their interaction paradigm forces workers to choose between carrying out the actual steps of a work procedure or interacting with the device. The choices the user makes can also present safety risks.

Commercially available wearable (head-mounted) displays enable frontline workers to consume context-relevant information while executing work procedures using both hands thereby – theoretically – speeding up work. The same could be true for projection-based AR approaches. And both approaches may decrease or completely mitigate safety risks innate to handheld devices. However, there is no independent assessment of the potential economic or safety benefits of the emerging, AR-enriched hands-free modalities.

This research topic focuses on the development of methodologies for performing objective, quantitative assessments of the impact of wearable and projection-based AR approaches compared to work procedures assisted by AR delivered using handheld devices. Measurement methods would be developed to ensure accuracy with a 95% confidence interval. The assessment methodology could include user acceptance of different modalities.

The research scope could be expanded to include performing comparative studies measuring the exact impact of wearable or projection AR modality vs. the handheld baseline across industries, use cases, and horizontal use case categories.

Stakeholders

Operations leaders, financial management, OEM manufacturers, Independent Software Vendors,

Possible Methodologies

The research will contribute to development of tools to accurately, impartially measure the differences between handheld and wearable displays. The measurement methods.

Research Program

This research can be combined with or extended to include different wearable form factors, including but not limited to monocular displays and binocular or holographic.

Miscellaneous Notes

The AREA RoI calculator is a starting point for quantifying the economic impacts of AR in repair and maintenance use cases. This research topic could contribute to the expansion of the AREA RoI calculator.

Keywords

Efficiency, handheld, projection AR, wearable displays, head-mounted displays, usability, user perception, human factors, head worn displays, wearable computers,

Research Agenda Categories

Displays, Business

Expected Impact Timeframe

Near

Related Publications

Using the words in this topic description and Natural Language Processing analysis of publications in the AREA FindAR database, the references below have the highest number of matches with this topic:

More publications can be explored using the AREA FindAR research tool.

Author

Peter Orban, Christine Perey

Last Published (yyyy-mm-dd)

2021-08-31

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