In-your-face, yet unseen?

Abstract

One unique property of head-mounted displays (HMDs) is that content can easily be displayed at a fixed position within the user's field of view (head-stabilized). This ensures that critical information (e.g. warnings) is continuously visible and can, in principle, be perceived as quickly as possible. We examined this strategy with a physically and visually distracted driver. We ran two consecutive studies in a driving simulator, comparing different warning visualizations in a head-up display (HUD) and a HMD. In an initial study, we found no significant effects of warning type or display technology on the reaction times. In a second study, after modifying our visualization to include a visual reference marker, we found that with only this minor change, reaction times were significantly lower in the HMD when compared to the HUD. Our insights can help others design better headstabilized notifications.

A Comparative Study of Pointing Techniques for Eyewear Using a Simulated Pedestrian Environment

“…Contrarily to previous assumptions [31,38,30,27] we were surprised that the use of eyewear did not improve situation awareness in our simulator; indeed, situation awareness with eyewear was worse than regular phone interaction with harder-to-use input techniques. User feedback was divided: five participants reported that it was easier to deal with divided attention using the smartglasses, while four others stated the opposite.…”

“…Our results demonstrate that (a) the trackpad technique was the most socially acceptable, most accurate, and fastest for eyewear, and (b) the in-air techniques (which are increasingly integrated in commercial AR products) tended to perform poorly and were subjectively unacceptable. Importantly, while a key expected benefit of eyewear is that their head-up view should improve situation awareness and safety while walking [38,30,27], our results indicate that this may not be true: results indicate that situation awareness was worse when using the candidate techniques (i.e., with eyewear) than in the control condition without eyewear.…”

“…Rather than altering the environment, another approach to improving situation awareness is to alter the interface [31], and to explore interaction mechanisms that are more fit for the challenges of pedestrian environments [30,57,31,43], such as eyes-free interaction [57,20] or the use of eyewear [30,17]. Researchers have argued that eyewear displays allow more seamless integration between the display of information and the surrounding environment, and as a result, improve situation awareness [38,30,27]. However, there is a lack of empirical study testing this assumption, possibly due to the risks associated with placing experimental participants in congested urban settings.…”

“…While current devices have limitations, like narrow field-of-view, hardware is quickly improving, creating new possibilities for interaction in the office and home as well as during daily activities such as commuting. Indeed, academic and industry experts have suggested that eyewear displays might underpin a foundational change for the next generation of mobile interaction [7,30,38,27]. One potentially important advantage of eyewear displays is that they enable head-up interaction, which may enhance the user's situational awareness while engaged in concurrent activities, such as walking along a busy sidewalk.…”

Contact-analog warnings on windshield displays promote monitoring the road scene

“…Warnings in HUD condition are displayed within a rectangle with white borders (294 × 137 px) at the standard HUD position 5 • below the meridian [2,4] of the field of view since people showed faster reaction times [14]. Warnings are displayed (see Fig.…”