AREA recognizes that human-centered design is critical to building and deploying successful AR applications, devices, and services. The Human Factors Interest Group is a forum for members to exchange ideas, resources, and research on best practices.
Focus areas for this committee include the following as applied uniquely to AR:
Barbara Chaparro
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU)
Ryan Wheeler
RTX
AREA recognizes that human-centered design is critical to building and deploying successful AR applications, devices, and services. The Human Factors Committee is a forum for members to exchange ideas, resources, and research on best practices.
Focus areas for this committee include the following as applied uniquely to AR:
Usability is an essential prerequisite for any successful AR application. If any aspect of the application – from the cognitive impact on the user to the comfort of the AR device – has a significant negative impact on usability, it could discourage user acceptance and limit projected productivity gains and return-on-investment.
But how can organizations pursuing an AR application evaluate a solution’s usability? To answer that question, the AREA Human Factors Committee has undertaken the development of an AR and MR Usability Heuristic Checklist. Driven by Jessyca Derby and Barbara S. Chaparro of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Jon Kies of Qualcomm, the Checklist is intended to be used as a tool for practitioners to evaluate the usability and experience of an AR or MR application.
The AR & MR Usability Heuristic Checklist currently includes the following heuristics:
The team is in the process of validating these heuristics across a range of devices and applications. So far, they have conducted evaluations with head-mounted display devices (such as Magic Leap and HoloLens), mobile phones, educational applications, and AR/MR games; see their recent journal article for more information.
To further ensure that the breadth of the AR and MR Usability Heuristic Checklist remains valuable across domains and devices, they are in the process of conducting further validation that will consider:
In the coming months, the team will move on to identifying and obtaining applications and/or hardware that touch on the areas outlined above. They will then conduct heuristic evaluations and usability testing with the applications and/or hardware to further refine and validate the Checklist. The final step will be to establish an Excel-based toolkit that will house the Checklist. This will enable practitioners to easily complete an evaluation and immediately obtain results.
Upon completion of the project, the AR and MR Usability Heuristic Checklist will become a vital resource for any organization considering the adoption of AR. If you would like to learn more or have an idea for an application that could be included in this validation process, please contact Dr. Barbara Chaparro or Jessyca Derby.
AREA: What does Human Factors in Augmented Reality encompass?
Kies: Human Factors is the study of humans, from both cognitive and physical perspectives. We investigate how humans interact with devices, applications, and services, and incorporate those insights into the design of systems. In the case of AR, it’s especially important because you may be wearing a device on your head, and interacting via an interface overlaid on the real world. This is arguably one of the most challenging design problems.
AREA: Do we still have a lot to learn about the Human Factors implications of AR?
Kies: That’s absolutely the case. The technology is still evolving. Many current devices can’t be used for a significant amount of time. It’s going to get there, but there are some technical hurdles that need to be resolved. That’s why it’s super-important that human characteristics become part of the requirements and are factored into the device design process.
AREA: How much of our past user experience knowledge is relatable to AR, and how much is starting from scratch?
Kies: We’re not entirely starting from scratch. A lot of people in the field have experience designing for 2D interfaces like smartphones. But you then have to translate that to a spatial computing paradigm where everything is not only in 3D, but also superimposed on the real world. That’s unlike a smartphone or a PC, where the interface is primarily contained in a rectangle. That’s what makes AR enormously challenging compared to working with other computing platforms. But there has been a lot of research in AR and VR in the military and universities, so there’s a lot to glean from those areas, and established human-centered design processes are still relevant.
AREA: What’s your top priority for the AREA Human Factors Committee this year?
Kies: Our overriding goal is to identify and develop best practices to help ensure the best possible AR user experience. In pursuit of that goal, our number-one priority is to engage more with academic research labs – to invite them to share their findings with the AREA membership. They are often experimenting with or building the latest technologies and they’re learning a great deal from their studies. Another thing we’re discussing is compiling a set of unique human-centered design practices that are pertinent to AR systems. And of course, we always want to get more AREA members involved in the Committee.
AREA: What’s your pitch for why AREA members should get involved in the Human Factors Committee?
Kies: My bias is toward conversation. Having meetings that act as a forum where people can talk about the challenges they’re facing, the successes they’ve had, and just connect – that’s a compelling reason to participate. By participating in Human Factors Committee meetings, end-user members have an opportunity to hear about other members’ experiences and lessons learned and apply that knowledge to their own efforts. For AR solutions providers, it’s an opportunity to get direct feedback from the AR user community. We also hope that concrete deliverables, like guidance on design, will enable AREA members to optimize their enterprise AR solutions for their target users.
It’s all about making connections and enabling dialogue – between users and providers, between the AR ecosystem and academic institutions – to everyone’s benefit. We’d like to build out a vibrant AR Human Factors community where people are learning from each other, contributing ideas, highlighting new discoveries, and finding solutions.
If you’re an AREA member and would like more information about joining the AREA Human Factors Committee, contact Jonathan Kies or AREA Executive Director Mark Sage. If you’re not yet an AREA member but interested in AR human factors and design, please consider joining; you can find member information here.
AREA: Tell us how you became interested in joining the AREA.
Dr. Chaparro: I first heard
about the AREA from Brian Laughlin at Boeing. Brian was my human factors
doctoral student when I was at Wichita State and we’ve kept in touch over the
years. I’ve seen the kinds of things he’s been working on at Boeing and how it
overlapped with my research interest in human/computer interaction and usability
and user experience. I saw an opportunity to pursue them further through the
AREA group.
AREA: Could you tell us more about your background as it relates to AR?
Dr. Chaparro: My background is
in the area of usability and user experience. I have worked with a number of
different companies and technologies focusing on implementing design principles
to make it as easy as possible for people to use devices and tools.
I became interested in AR when
Google Glass was introduced. I could see the potential in industries such as aviation,
medical, and consumer products. My initial interest with Glass was to use it as
a training tool for my students. I also worked with a colleague at Wichita
State to study user interactions with Glass versus a cell phone.
And then HoloLens came out, and
for a year and a half now, we have been exploring the user experience side of
HoloLens. We want to get an idea of how the average person experiences this
technology. For instance: What are some of the issues from a UX standpoint? The
gesturing, window manipulation, texting, voice input – all of these methods of
interaction bring usability and user experience issues to the human-technology
interaction. A lot of the literature is focused on the usability of a particular
app, but there is very little out there on the integration of multiple technologies,
working across a multitude of tasks at the same time, or task-switching between
the physical and augmented environment. That is my interest, and then seeing the
application of this to a variety of domains. I consult, for example, with
healthcare professionals who believe that AR has great potential. Whatever the
domain, there is going to be this core issue of usability that will determine whether
it takes off or not. Eventually, it comes down to the comfort and the seamlessness
of the user experience in the tasks that they are doing.
AREA: How do you expect to benefit from your membership in the AREA?
Dr. Chaparro: I see the AREA as
a fantastic mix of academic researchers and industries that are applying the
technology. Human factors is an applied field, so we’re always looking for
practical applications of the things we’re studying in the lab. So I see that
as a huge benefit of the AREA. Then we’ll benefit from the work of the various
committees. We’ve been participating in the Safety and the Research Committees,
and hopefully, the Human Factors Committee in the future. We need to understand
what the issues are, because any problem that an industry is having is a potential
research project for one of my students. And that’s the other benefit: to
recognize the needs of industries that will need to hire students that have
knowledge of this technology. We want to understand what those needs are so we
can build them into our curriculum if they are not already there.
AREA: Based on what you have learned so far, what do you see as the
major outstanding issue that needs to be addressed to make AR more usable to
the average person?
Chaparro: With these new
glasses and head-mounted devices, certainly comfort is an issue, especially in
industries where they will need to wear them for an extended period of time.
That’s going to be huge. And not from just a comfort standpoint but also visually
– going back and forth between the physical and augmented world and what that
experience is like.
AREA: In addition to the research projects you mentioned, what other
areas of AR are being explored at Embry-Riddle?
Chaparro: My colleague Dr. Joseph
Keebler has been conducting research related to marker-based AR in medical
training. His area of expertise is medical human factors, teams, and training, so
he is excited about the technology from both a training standpoint and as a
real-time use tool for high performing teams. The issue is that, while it
appears that this technology is great and effective, we really need more research
to demonstrate how and when it is working, and how to best integrate it into
modern day systems.
One challenge is that there’s
a novelty effect problem. For instance, there are research projects being done
that show AR is better for performing a task, but it is really hard to tease
away the novelty side of that. In other words – are people improving due to
increased learning from the AR system? Or is it simply the fact that it’s this
fascinating and visually impressive technology that is garnering people’s
interest and keeping them engaged? Joe and I are interested in how to structure
a study so that we are looking at the true effectiveness of the technology above
and beyond the effects of its potential novelty. Joe has published a few papers
on AR, including a chapter in the Cambridge Handbook of Workplace Training and
Employee Development (Keebler, Patzer, Wiltshire, & Fiore, 2017)[1].
Another one of our colleagues,
Dr. Alex Chaparro, has been working on the use of AR in transportation. For
example, AR has many applications in aviation, maintenance documentation, and
driving environments. His main interest is in the uses of AR and VR in these environments
to train individuals to perform complex tasks.
We also have a VR gaming lab.
Joe and I have also done some psychometric work on the validation of a new
satisfaction instrument for video games that we’re now trying to apply to the
AR world (Phan, Keebler, & Chaparro, 2016)[2]. We
definitely see the benefits of this technology and would like to see it
succeed.
[1] Keebler, J. R., Patzer, B. S., Wiltshire, T.
J., & Fiore, S. M. (2017). 12 Augmented Reality Systems in Training. The
Cambridge Handbook of Workplace Training and Employee Development, 278.
[2] Phan, M. H., Keebler, J. R., & Chaparro, B. S. (2016). The
development and validation of the game user experience satisfaction scale
(GUESS). Human Factors, 58(8),
1217-1247.