The Effect of Layout on Visual Search in Augmented Reality Multi-Window Displays

Augmented reality (AR) may provide supplementary information to support tasks in the physical world, offering the advantage of displaying multiple windows with high flexibility in interface layout. In AR-physical world mixed scenarios, users often need to locate and retrieve target information from virtual multi-window displays. Understanding how to design effective layouts for these interfaces is critical to enhancing visual search performance, a key element of information retrieval. This study examines the effects of depth separation, information density and curvature of virtual multi-window displays on a conjunctive visual search task in AR. Results indicate that reducing information density and introducing curvature significantly reduced both search time and the time taken to decide that the target was absent (task quit time). Although depth separation did not significantly affect search time, it notably reduced quit time. The number of errors was not significantly influenced by any of the factors. Additionally, users preferred a curved display with lower information density that remained within the device's field of view, and their search time was fastest with this layout. Finally, we noticed variations in layout preference and performance changes among individuals, possibly influenced by differences in search strategies.