Exploring users' sense of safety in public using an Augmented Reality application

TL;DR

This paper investigates how augmented reality (AR) tourism apps affect users' sense of safety, focusing on the density of POI markers and UI visualization parameters. Using a 3x3 factorial design implemented in a Unity AR Foundation app on Android, the study varies POI amount (few, medium, many) and UI elements (transparency, color, size) across nine conditions in a field setting with 25 participants. Results show that POI marker density significantly reduces sense of safety, as indicated by increased distraction and perceived risk, while visual parameter adjustments do not yield clear safety effects; usability remains high (SUS ≈ 86). These findings inform AR UI design by highlighting the need to balance information density to maintain situational awareness, and suggest further field studies across diverse environments to refine the role of transparency and size in user safety.

Abstract

Nowadays, Augmented Reality (AR) is available on almost all smartphones creating some exciting interaction opportunities but also challenges. For example, already after the famous AR app Pokemon GO was released in July 2016, numerous accidents related to the use of the app were reported by users. At the same time, the spread of AR can be noticed in the tourism industry, enabling tourists to explore their surroundings in new ways but also exposing them to safety issues. This preliminary study explores users' sense of safety when manipulating the amount and UI elements visualization parameters of Point of Interest (POI) markers in a developed AR application. The results show that the amount of POI markers that are displayed is significant for participants' sense of safety. The influence of manipulating UI elements in terms of transparency, color, and size cannot be proven. Nevertheless, most tested people stated that manipulating transparency and size somehow influences their sense of safety, so a closer look at them should be taken in future studies.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Examples of the Application GUI
• Figure 2: Estimated Marginal Means for modified SDS (on left) and Smombie Scale (on right) for amount of markers and UI Element