Effects of Background Complexity and Viewing Distance on an AR Visual Search Task

Information in augmented reality (AR) consists of virtual and real contexts and is provided to the AR environment at different distances for each user. Therefore, it is important to understand how the integration of two different information influences the user's AR experience. However, little has been studied regarding the complexity and viewing distance of a real space. Our study investigates how the complexity of the physical environment and viewing distance influence workload and performance in a visual search task in an AR environment. We conducted an experiment in which participants performed conjunction search under three different levels of background complexity, at both near (1.5m) and far (3m) distances. The results indicated that as the complexity of the background increased, the users' performance time and workload were negatively impacted. In addition, when the distance between the user and the background was greater, search time increased. From the results of the study, we derived some recommendations for the design of AR interfaces. Our research contributes to the design of interfaces by demonstrating the necessity to consider the complexity of background and viewing distance.