Exploring the Use of Visual Annotations in a Remote Assistance Platform

Abstract

In this paper, we report on the evaluation of a remote assistance platform (RAP) that is designed to enable an expert to remotely assist a field operator. A user study with 16 participants was conducted to evaluate its usability with two assembly tasks that varied in their complexity. As part of the assessment, we compared the interaction behavior of our platform with a commercial instant messaging application, which lacked the ability to augment or view video imagery. The results identified differences in the completion times between the two conditions, as we examined the use of visual augmentation, including recommendations to improve the platform.