Assistance for Target Selection in Mobile Augmented Reality

Vinod Asokan, Scott Bateman, Anthony Tang

Keywords: Mobile augmented reality, target assistance, augmented reality, mobile devices, pointing assistance

TL;DR: We adapt and compare target assistance techniques to improve object selection in mobile augmented reality.

Abstract: Mobile augmented reality – where a mobile device is used to view and interact with virtual objects displayed in the real world – is becoming more common. Target selection is the main method of interaction in mobile AR, but is particularly difficult because targets in AR can have challenging characteristics such as moving or being occluded (by digital or real world objects). To address this problem, we conduct a comparative study of target assistance techniques designed for mobile AR. We compared four different cursor-based selection techniques against the standard touch-to-select interaction, finding that a newly adapted Bubble Cursor-based technique performs consistently best across a range of five target characteristics. Our work provides new findings demonstrating the promise of cursor-based target assistance in mobile AR.