Two is Better Than One. Improved Attention Guiding in AR by Combining Techniques

Search tasks in production environments have been shown to be significantly improved by attention guiding techniques in augmented reality (AR). In mobile use cases, head-mounted displays support context-sensitive and flexible search tasks. To improve search time and navigation efficiency, first concepts like attention funnel and spherical wave based guidance techniques have been tested successfully in comparison to simple arrow navigation. Existing research indicates that for two-dimensional interfaces, a differentiation into coarse and fine navigation will result in further performance improvements. In this article, a laboratory study is presented with a stereoscopic head-mounted display that examines whether an additional arrow guiding technique for coarse navigation could improve both search time and efficiency of existing techniques. Results show objectively superior performance for one of the combined techniques in comparison to the unimodal attention guiding techniques and subjective preference by the participants. Further research should investigate the performance in a real environment.