From Shielding to Avoidance: Passenger Augmented Reality and the Layout of Virtual Displays for Productivity in Shared Transit

Abstract

Passengers spend considerable periods of time in shared transit spaces, relying on smartphones and laptops for work. However, these displays are limited in size and ergonomics compared to typical multi-monitor setups used in the office, impairing productivity. Augmented Reality (AR) headsets could provide large, flexible virtual workspaces during travel, enabling passengers to work more efficiently. This paper investigates the factors affecting how passengers choose to layout virtual displays in car, train, subway and plane environments, studying the affordances of each mode of transport and the presence of others. Results from our experiment showed: significant usage of the physical environment to align displays; strong social effects meant avoiding placing displays over other passengers or their belongings; and use of displays for shielding oneself from others. Our findings show the unique challenges posed by the mode of transport and presence of others on the use of AR for mobile productivity in the future. .

Surveying the Social Comfort of Body, Device, and Environment-Based Augmented Reality Interactions in Confined Passenger Spaces Using Mixed Reality Composite Videos

“…A growing body of research has been examining the utility, usability and acceptability of Extended Reality (XR) headsets for use by passengers, supporting productivity [28,35,49,62,63,68], gaming [32,58,100,116], entertainment [28,56,115], relaxation [48] and more. Whilst much of this research has focused on passenger use of occlusive VR headsets and the unique challenges they pose in passenger contexts [57], the prospect of everyday Augmented Reality [70], first in glasses-like form factors, offers a route towards virtual spatial interactive content being rendered anywhere around the passenger, giving users a chance to move away from the constraints of more traditional mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops and enabling a breadth of future mobility use cases [7,84].…”

“…AR allows passengers to, in theory, more significantly appropriate or occlude their surrounding space for the display of virtual content e.g. being used to create virtual shields or barriers for privacy [62] or appropriate the surrounding environment for gameplay [100]. As the technology evolves and the form factor of AR headsets tends towards all-day use and wear, we could reasonably expect use of such devices in autonomous cars, planes, trains and other modes of public transport in the near future.…”

“…This has already been shown to impact AR passenger behaviours in e.g. decisions around how to place virtual displays and content in transit contexts [62]. Prior research has shown that "the seating layout of public transport forces people into an intimate distance with strangers, causing social discomfortž [99] which could be expected to impact attitudes towards AR-oriented interaction techniques.…”

“…Users felt more comfortable in public settings when performing interactions that were less attention-grabbing and belonged to their personal space, such as the armrests, and less comfortable with seatbacks and horizontal tables. These surfaces offer significant advantages for AR interactions, offering a large surface area with haptic feedback and in-built haptic features [62,63]. However, they also can potentially invade others' space (e.g., taking up more of the shared table than is considered fair) or otherwise negatively impact others' travel experiences (e.g.…”

A Lack of Restraint: Comparing Virtual Reality Interaction Techniques for Constrained Transport Seating

“…With the mainstream adoption of standalone Virtual Reality (VR) headsets, users can take their devices on public and private transport such as cars, trains and planes, to make their journeys more enjoyable or productive [16,23,28,32]. However, these users are forced to interact in heavily constrained spaces: limiting the freedom of physical movement for traditional VR interaction compared to traditional 1-2m 2 home environments that commercial VR experiences are designed for.…”