The cost of supporting references in collaborative augmented reality

Abstract

For successful collaboration to occur, a fundamental requirement is the ability for participants to refer to artifacts within the shared environment. This task is often straightforward in traditional collaborative desktop applications, yet the spatial properties found in mixed reality environments greatly impact the complexity of generating and interpreting meaningful reference cues. Although awareness is a very active area of research, little focus has been given to the environmental and contextual factors that influence referencing or the costs associated with supporting it in mixed reality environments. The work presented here consists of a compilation of understanding we have gained through user observation, participant feedback and system development. We begin by summarizing our findings from several user studies in collaborative augmented reality (AR). To organize the complexity associated with referencing in AR, we enumerate contextual and environmental factors that influence referential awareness - integrating discussion about user preferences and the impact they have on the underlying technological requirements. Finally, we discuss how these factors can impact the design space of collaborative systems and describe the cost associated with supporting references in collaborative AR.