Exploring the use of handheld AR for outdoor navigation

Recently, mobile-phone based outdoor augmented reality (AR) systems have become readily available. One of the most popular applications are AR browsers that show virtual points of interest (POIs) overlaid on top of the phone's camera view. These virtual cues can be used to guide people to the POIs. However, the usefulness of AR systems for guiding users to POI has not yet been evaluated, especially when compared to map interfaces. In this paper we present results of a user study comparing navigation with information typically provided by currently available handheld AR browsers, to navigation with a digital map, and a combined map and AR condition. We found no overall difference in task completion time, but found evidence that AR browsers are less useful for navigation in some environment conditions. We also found that navigation performance differed significantly with gender for the Map and AR + Map interfaces, but is very similar across gender for the AR interface. Users preferred the combined AR + Map condition, and felt that there were significant problems with using the AR view alone for navigation. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.