Sunyoung Bang

A WISE (Wearable Interface for Sustainable Enhancement) AR UI/UX platform for smart glasses.

This research investigates the use of hybrid user interfaces to enhance text readability in augmented reality (AR) by combining optical see-through head-mounted displays with smartphones. While this integration can improve information legibility, it may also introduce display switching side effects. The extent to which these side effects hinder user experience and when the benefits outweigh drawbacks remain unclear. To address this gap, we conducted an empirical study (N=24) to evaluate how hybrid user interfaces affect AR reading tasks across different content distances, which induce varying levels of display switching. Our findings show that hybrid user interfaces offer significant readability benefits compared to using the HMD only, reducing mental and physical demands when reading text linked to content at closer distances. However, as the distance between displays increases, the compensatory behaviors users adopt to manage increased switching costs negate these benefits, making hybrid user interfaces less effective. Based on these findings, we suggest (1) using smartphones as supplementary displays for text in reading-intensive tasks, (2) implementing adaptive display positioning to minimize switching overhead in such scenarios, and (3) adjusting the smartphone’s role based on content distance for less intensive reading tasks. These insights provide guidance for optimizing smartphone integration in hybrid interfaces and enhancing AR systems for reading applications.

The reading experience on current augmented reality (AR) head mounted displays (HMDs) is often impeded by the devices' low perceived resolution, translucency, and small field of view, especially in situations involving lengthy text. Although many researchers have proposed methods to resolve this issue, the inherent characteristics prevent these displays from delivering a readability on par with that of more traditional displays. As a solution, we explore the use of smartphones as assistive displays to AR HMDs. To validate the feasibility of our approach, we conducted a user study in which we compared a smartphone-assisted hybrid interface against using the HMD only for two different text lengths. The results demonstrate that the hybrid interface yields a lower task load regardless of the text length, although it does not improve task performance. Furthermore, the hybrid interface provides a better experience regarding user comfort, visual fatigue, and perceived readability. Based on these results, we claim that joining the spatial output capabilities of the HMD with the high-resolution display of the smartphone is a viable solution for improving the reading experience in AR.

Using an augmented reality head-mounted display(HMD) to extend the display of smartphone could open up new user interface solutions, benefiting users with an increased screen real-estate and visualizations that leverage each device's capabilities. Some previous works have explored the viability of extended displays, but knowledge regarding considerable design factors and constraints for such displays is still very limited. In our work, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate how different properties of augmented content in extended displays affect the user's task performance and subjective workload in an image comparison task. Through an experiment with 24 participants, we compared four augmented content placements (top, right, left, and bottom) and two augmented content sizes (small and large). The study results demonstrated that there are significant effects of both placement and size of augmented content on task performance and subjective workload. Based on the findings of our study, we propose some recommendations for the future design of extended displays.

Conventional approaches to a virtual heritage site that provide interpretations through curated content allow visitors only the lowest level of engagement, which is paying conscious, intentional attention to the content. In this paper, we propose a trajectory for visitor experience to a virtual heritage site that facilitates a higher level of engagement by letting visitors make their own interpretations. We developed a mobile virtual reality (VR) application that delivers this trajectory, which allows visitors to author mixed reality (MR) content that represents personal interpretations. The application provides three types of virtual assets to compose MR content: historical assets, emotional assets, and personal assets. We describe how visitors generally followed our trajectory and used virtual assets, engaging with virtual heritage and making interpretations. We related our findings to a discussion of how to support personal engagement and rich interpretation in a virtual heritage site.

Augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) allow users to easily receive notifications while participating other tasks by projecting information directly in their field of view. Although HMDs offer such benefits in displaying notifications, there is insufficient research on the effective placement of AR notifications when the user is walking. For this, we conducted two studies based on different types of AR information to identify how the users perceive and understand the AR notifications according to placement while walking. We compared two different coordinate systems (display-fixed and body-fixed) and three different positions (top, right, and bottom) for icon-type and text-type notifications. The results indicated that using a display-fixed coordinate system for icon-type notifications yields significantly higher noticeability and comprehension. In contrast, using a body-fixed coordinate system for text-type notifications significantly improved comprehension and walking performance. Regarding the position of notifications, the bottom position resulted in a significantly higher noticeability and comprehension for both icon- and text-type notifications compared with the top. Based on these results, we draw some recommendations for the future design of notifications in AR HMDs.

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.