User Experience in Mobile Augmented Reality: Emotions, Challenges, Opportunities and Best Practices

Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) is gaining a strong momentum to become a major interactive technology that can be applied across domains and purposes. The rapid proliferation of MAR applications in global mobile application markets has been fueled by a range of freely-available MAR software development kits and content development tools, some of which enable the creation of MAR applications even without programming skills. Despite the recent advances of MAR technology and tools, there are still many challenges associated with MAR from the User Experience (UX) design perspective. In this study, we first define UX as the emotions that the user encounters while using a service, a product or an application and then explore the recent research on the topic. We present two case studies, a commercial MAR experience and our own Virtual Campus Tour MAR application, and evaluate them from the UX perspective, with a focus on emotions. Next, we synthesize the findings from previous research and the results of the case study evaluations to form sets of challenges, opportunities and best practices related to UX design of MAR applications. Based on the identified best practices, we finally present an updated version of the Virtual Campus Tour. The results can be used for improving UX design of future MAR applications, thus making them emotionally engaging.