Opportunities for In-Home Augmented Reality Guidance

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) systems has been shown to be beneficial in guiding users through structured tasks when compared to traditional 2D instructions. In this work, we begin to examine the potential of such systems for home improvement tasks, which present some specific challenges (e.g., operating at both large and small scales, and coping with the diversity in home environments). Specifically, we investigate user performance of a common low-level task in this domain. We conducted a user study where participants mark points on a planar surface (as if to place a nail, or measure from) guided only by virtual cues. We observed that participants position themselves so as to minimize parallax by kneeling, leaning, or side-stepping, and when doing so, they are able to mark points with a high degree of accuracy. In cases where the targets fall above one's line of vision, participants are less able to compensate and make larger errors. We discuss initial insights from these observations and participant feedback, and present the first set of challenges that we believe designers and developers will face in this domain.