On-body tapping provides a quick way to launch augmented reality (AR) apps using virtual shortcuts placed on the user’s skin, clothes, and jewelry. While prior work has focused on tapping performance, social acceptance, and sensing techniques, users’ behaviour in placing shortcuts on their body has been underexplored. In this work, we propose On-body Icons — a novel interface for launching apps via touching virtual icons placed across the user’s entire body, and use it to investigate locations, reasons for chosen icon placement, and users’ attitudes towards the feature. Results of the qualitative study conducted with 24 participants demonstrated that people employ a wide variety of placement strategies that balance memorability of the locations with accuracy and comfort of reaching the icons. We discuss these findings in regard to current understanding of memorability of icon placement, placement appropriateness, and privacy, and offer design implications for similar features in spatial applications.
Inspired by the concepts of diminishing reality and ad-blocking in browsers, this study investigates the perceived benefits and concerns of blocking physical, real-world content, particularly ads, through Extended Reality (XR). To understand how users perceive this concept, we first conducted a user study (N=18) with an ad-blocking prototype to gather initial insights. The results revealed a mixed willingness to adopt XR blockers, with participants appreciating aspects such as customizability, convenience, and privacy. Expected benefits included enhanced focus and reduced stress, while concerns centered on missing important information and increased feelings of isolation. Hence, we investigated the user acceptance of different ad-blocking visualizations through a follow-up online survey (N=120), comparing six concepts based on related work. The results indicated that the XR ad-blocker visualizations play a significant role in how and for what kinds of advertisements such a concept might be used, paving the path for future feedback-driven prototyping.
Mid-air gestures serve as a common interaction modality across Extended Reality (XR) applications, enhancing engagement and ownership through intuitive body movements. However, prolonged arm movements induce shoulder fatigue—known as "Gorilla Arm Syndrome"—degrading user experience and reducing interaction duration. Although existing ergonomic techniques derived from Fitts' law (such as reducing target distance, increasing target width, and modifying control-display gain) provide some fatigue mitigation, their implementation in XR applications remains challenging due to the complex balance between user engagement and physical exertion. We present \textit{AlphaPIG}, a meta-technique designed to \textbf{P}rolong \textbf{I}nteractive \textbf{G}estures by leveraging real-time fatigue predictions. AlphaPIG assists designers in extending and improving XR interactions by enabling automated fatigue-based interventions. Through adjustment of intervention timing and intensity decay rate, designers can explore and control the trade-off between fatigue reduction and potential effects such as decreased body ownership. We validated AlphaPIG's effectiveness through a study (N=22) implementing the widely-used Go-Go technique. Results demonstrated that AlphaPIG significantly reduces shoulder fatigue compared to non-adaptive Go-Go, while maintaining comparable perceived body ownership and agency. Based on these findings, we discuss positive and negative perceptions of the intervention. By integrating real-time fatigue prediction with adaptive intervention mechanisms, AlphaPIG constitutes a critical first step towards creating fatigue-aware applications in XR.
The promise of Extended Reality (XR) in education is significant but one size does not fit all learning contexts and student preferences. Varied content with different immersion levels is hence beneficial, but creating XR content remains daunting for educators using conventional tools. This paper introduces XRAuthor, a web-based authoring tool designed to empower educators to create varying immersive learning content - ranging from conventional video to interactive animations and full-fledged VR - all from a single authoring experience with a webcam. Through online one-to-one workshops with 14 educators, we found strong endorsement for the new authoring workflow enabled by XRAuthor. Participants also found that the varied interactive exercises automatically generated by the tool aligned well with effective pedagogical practices. High ease of use and efficiency were identified as crucial attributes of XRAuthor. The design knowledge facilitated by XRAuthor underscores the potential of such tool designs to democratize XR content creation for learning.
Fitts' law is widely used as an evaluation tool for pointing or selection tasks, evolving into diverse applications, including 3D extended reality (XR) environments like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. Despite standards like ISO 9241:411, the application of Fitts' law varies significantly across studies, complicating comparisons and undermining the reliability of findings in 3D XR research. To address this, we conducted a systematic review of 119 publications, focusing on 122 studies that used Fitts' law in 3D XR user experiments. Our analysis shows that over half of these studies referenced Fitts' law without thoroughly investigating throughput, movement time, or error rate. We performed an in-depth meta-analysis to examine how Fitts' law is incorporated into research. By highlighting trends and inconsistencies, and making recommendations this review aims to guide researchers in designing and performing more effective and consistent Fitts-based studies in 3D XR, enhancing the quality and impact of future research.
Extended Reality (XR)-enabled headsets that overlay digital content onto the physical world, are gradually finding their way into our daily life. This integration raises significant concerns about privacy and access control, especially in shared spaces where XR applications interact with everyday objects. Such issues remain subtle in the absence of widespread applications of XR and studies in shared spaces are required for a smooth progress. This study evaluated a prototype system facilitating natural language policy creation for flexible, context-aware access control of personal objects. We assessed its usability, focusing on balancing precision and user effort in creating access control policies. Qualitative interviews and task-based interactions provided insights into users' preferences and behaviors, informing future design directions. Findings revealed diverse user needs for controlling access to personal items in various situations, emphasizing the need for flexible, user-friendly access control in XR-enhanced shared spaces that respects boundaries and considers social contexts.