Poster: A comparative study of metaphors for investigating augmented reality artifacts

Augmented Reality applications allow users to view real-world elements augmented by virtual content. Providing appropriate manipulation techniques for virtual objects has the potential to enhance user performance, decrease task completion time, and elicit a more positive user experience. With a goal of establishing guidelines to inform the selection of manipulation metaphors for the development of AR interfaces, we compared physical and touch manipulation metaphors for zoom and rotation techniques. Qualitative and quantitative data on user preferences and performance were gathered from a within-subjects user study that utilized frame markers for registering and rendering 3D artifacts. Results indicated that the non-mixed metaphor interfaces performed the best with regard to task completion time, accuracy, and user preference in terms of intuitiveness and ease of use.