Development and Usability Evaluation of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces

Abstract

The concept of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces where a user can seamlessly transition across the Reality-Virtuality-Continuum dates back to the introduction of the Magic Book in 2001 but recently gained new research momentum since head-mounted displays advanced by combining the former distinctive concepts of augmented reality and virtual reality into a single device. New technological capabilities require new ways of developing applications to satisfy user requirements. Especially in the context of operating in multiple realities, developing AR/VR applications is not a trivial task. In this context, the development of Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces remains a complex engineering problem that requires specific methods, concepts, and tools. To address this problem and provide a systematic development approach, we propose a conceptual framework for both developing and evaluating Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces. To evaluate our solution, we implemented a Transitional Cross-Reality Interface based on our framework and evaluated it with both the measurements provided by the framework and additional questionnaires. We found high usability and interesting transitional behavior of users indicating the usefulness of the proposed framework as an underlying software architecture for Transitional Cross-Reality Interfaces.