The SmARtphone Controller - Leveraging Smartphones as Input and Output Modality for Improved Interaction within Mobile Augmented Reality Environments

Abstract

Current interaction modalities for mobile Augmented Reality (AR) are tedious and lack expressiveness. To overcome these prevalent limitations, we developed and evaluated a multimodal interaction concept by pairing a smartphone as an input and output modality for mobile AR. In a user study (n = 24), we investigated the effects on interaction speed, accuracy, and task load for (1) virtual object manipulation as well as (2) interaction with established graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Our findings show that a smartphone-based AR controller results in significantly faster and more accurate object manipulation with reduced task load than state-of-art mid-air gestures. Our results also indicate a significant enhancement for using the physical touchscreen as a modality compared to mid-air gestures for GUI interaction. We conclude that interaction in mobile AR environments can be improved by utilizing a smartphone as an omnipresent controller. Additionally, we discuss how future AR systems can benefit from tangible touchscreens as an additional and complementary interaction modality.