DEGREE PROJECT IN COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2018

Geographical Visualization Within Augmented Reality Using visualization of geographical data through augmented reality to locate nearby city services

MATTIAS LARSSON

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE 2 Geographical Visualization Within Augmented Reality

Using visualization of geographical data through augmented reality to locate nearby city services

MATTIAS LARSSON

Master in Computer Science Date: May 30, 2018 Supervisor: Håkan Lane (KTH), Thomas Stjerne (Norconsult Astando) Examiner: Elena Troubitsyna Swedish title: Tillämpning av augmented reality på geografisk data för att förbättra stadens verksamhet School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Abstract Augmented Reality is today one of the most popular upcoming technologies most commonly known for its use within games and advertising. The technology is also used in other less known fields such as task support, navigation and sightseeing but still has additional usages to be discovered. This thesis investigates how Augmented Reality can be used to improve locating city services such as public toilets by visualizing data with the technology instead of more traditional 2D means. To establish a basis on how known Augmented Reality is compared to other visualization methods, a quantitative form was set up and answered by 105 persons. A qualitative study was also conducted that included an experiment with ten users, they were interviewed separately and their answers were recorded when they interacted with the Augmented Reality prototype using a think-aloud approach. The experiment was set up to gain more in-depth knowledge about how users experience using an Augmented Reality product to find nearby objects. The experiment was designed based on information content, functionality and performance, presentation and interaction. The experiment ended with a semistructured interview to gather additional results from what the users had experienced during the interaction with the prototype. The participants of the experiment were people that had used a smartphone before and were selected to create diversity for the study based on gender, age and occupation. The results were negative based on the prototype performance but positive towards a functional product according to both the quantitative and qualitative interview results. The conclusion formed was therefore that Augmented Reality has potential to replace conventional 2D means of finding nearby city services but not in its current state.

Sammanfattning Augmented Reality är idag en av de mest populära och uppkommande teknikerna och mest känt för dess användning inom spel och annonsering. Teknologin används också inom andra mindre kända områden som uppgift support, navigation och sightseeing men har fortfarande flera användningsområden som inte blivit upptäckta. Den här uppsatsen kommer att undersöka hur Augmented Reality kan användas för att förbättra lokalisering av närliggande stadstjänster som offentliga toaletter genom att visualisera det i Augmented Reality istället för traditionel- la 2D-tekniker. För att etablera hur väl känt Augmented Reality är jämfört med mer kända visualiseringsmetoder utformades ett kvantitativt formulär som besvarades av 105 personer. En kvalitativ studie var också utför som innehöll ett experiment med tio deltagare som inter- vjuades individuellt. Deras svar spelades medan de fick interagera med en Augmented Reality prototyp och utföra en think-aloud metod. Experimentet var designat baserat på informations- innehåll, funktionalitet och prestanda, presentation och interaktion. Experimentet avslutades med en semistrukturell intervju för att samla ytterligare resultat från vad användarna upplev- de under interaktionen med prototypen. Experimentets deltagare baserades på användare som använt en smartphone förut och var utvalda för att skapa mångfald baserat på kön, ålder och sysselsättning. Resultaten var negativa baserat på prototypens prestation men positiva mot en mer funktionell produkt enligt både de kvantitativa och kvalitativa intervjuresultaten. Slut- satsen är därav att Augmented Reality har potential till att ersätta traditionella 2D-tekniker för att hitta närliggande stadstjänster men inte i sitt nuvarande stadie. Contents

1 Introduction 1 1.1 Problem Statement ...... 2 1.2 Purpose ...... 2 1.3 Scope ...... 2 1.4 Ethics and sustainability ...... 2

2 Background 3 2.1 Augmented Reality ...... 3 2.1.1 Separations ...... 4 2.1.2 Development ...... 5 2.2 User Experience ...... 5 2.2.1 Augmented Reality User Experience ...... 7 2.3 Geographic Information Systems ...... 8 2.4 Related Work ...... 8

3 Methods 11 3.1 Quantitative Study ...... 11 3.2 Qualitative Study ...... 11 3.2.1 Target Group ...... 11 3.2.2 The Augmented Reality Application ...... 11 3.2.3 The Experiment ...... 12 3.3 Collection of Data ...... 13

4 Results 15 4.1 Quantitative Study ...... 15 4.2 Qualitative Study ...... 15 4.3 The Experiment ...... 16 4.3.1 Think Aloud ...... 16 4.3.2 Semistructured interviews ...... 17 4.4 MAR Parameters ...... 17 4.4.1 Information Content ...... 18 4.4.2 Functionality and Performance ...... 18 4.4.3 Presentation ...... 18 4.4.4 Interaction ...... 18

5 Discussion 19 5.1 The Results ...... 19 5.2 The Method ...... 20 5.3 Future Work ...... 21

6 Conclusion 22

References 23

Appendices 25

A Quantitative Interview 25

B Post Interview 26

C Quantitative Interview Results 27

D Experiment Participants Quantitative Results 32

2 List of Figures

Figure 1 The Sword of Damocles ...... 1 Figure 2 Fighter jet heads-up-display ...... 3 Figure 3 Demonstration of Videoplace ...... 4 Figure 4 Aesthetic experience of participants ...... 8 Figure 5 Demonstration of the prototype ...... 12 Figure 6 Demonstration of Experiment Route ...... 13 Figure 7 Age and gender distribution for the quantitative study ...... 15 Figure 8 Age and gender distribution for the qualitative study ...... 16

List of Tables

Table 1 AR SDK and their properties ...... 5 Table 2 Comparison based on tracking ...... 5 Table 3 Evaluation of known user experience (UX) methods ...... 7 Table 4 mobile augmented reality (MAR) components and Design Elements . . . . .8 Table 5 Analysed sources ...... 10 Table 6 Quantitative questions results ...... 15 Table 7 A segment of the qualitative questions result for the experiments participants 16

List of Acronyms

AR Augmented Reality

GIS Geographic Information Systems

GPS Global Positioning System

HMD Head-mounted Displays

MAR Mobile Augmented Reality

MR Mixed Reality

UI User Interface UX User Experience

VR Virtual Reality

3 1 Introduction

Looking back at history, humanity have made remarkable progress throughout the last centuries within technology and the last three decades is no exception, if anything the phase has been in- creased. Specifically, one area is information technology that has taken significant leaps forward both in the form of hardware and software development [1]. A testament to this fact is Moore’s law which states that every two years the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles [2]. The development of computers is one of the most remarkable forms of progress and the ability to put enough processing power into smaller devices such as mobile phones and tablets made them to act like computers. This progress has allowed new technologies to bloom, it enabled a development that earlier was limited by either lack of hardware support or software that had not caught up to speed yet. Augmented reality (AR) is one of these technologies that has recently taken off due to the smartphone integration ofAR.

There is an important distinction to be made between virtual reality(VR) andAR as virtual reality (VR) is a way to interact with objects in a virtual world whileAR is a way to view and interact with objects in the real world. The concept ofAR was first defined in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland when he presented the firstAR application called The Sword of Damocles [3]. This application can be observed in Figure1. It took about seven years before the next breakthrough happened which consisted of an application called Videoplace [4], [5]. The application made it possible to interact with theAR environment through the use of movement. The definition of today’sAR was not fully established until 1992 when Tom Caudell and David Mizell presented the definition known today.

Figure 1: The Sword of Damocles [6].

RecentlyAR has also gotten more attention due to the releases of games such as Pokémon GO, bringing more interest in this visualization method [7].AR has slowly but steadily been making its way into other areas, such as advertising, task support, navigation, sightseeing and more [8]. This is why more knowledge about the subject as a whole is needed. The purpose ofAR across the different fields is to use the technology as a tool to visualize the world in an alternative way and thus improve the user experience(UX).

During the last decades,AR development has progressed forward, but the discussion from aUX perspective has only begun recently. In a review of the current state ofUX research, it was con- cluded that of the 3225 studied articles relating to mobile augmented reality(MAR) collected between 2005 and 2014 only 35 related toUX[9]. With the recent exposureAR has received in combination with more support for the technology, it is vital to start discussing theUX perspective and how applications can be designed to provide the bestUX possible. One solution for measuring MAR is the parameters in the framework presented in a study made in 2015 investigating current UX methods for evaluation of MAR applications [10]. The method consists of the parameters information content, functionality and performance, presentation and interaction.

To expand the knowledge about the differences from aUX point of view when usingAR com- pared to more conventional 2D means, such as using a map or a search function to find nearby objects, an experiment was designed in this thesis. This experiment was designed to measureUX, based on MAR parameters, the interactions from participants using a MAR prototype of finding nearby city services to determine ifAR can be a way of replacing conventional 2D methods. A

1 prototype was designed for that purpose, and the experiment was done using a think-aloud while navigating with theAR application and recording the interactions from the participants. After the navigation part, a semistructured interview was conducted to gain additional experiences from the participants on how they had experienced the prototype.

1.1 Problem Statement Moving outside through walking often lead to hardships when trying to access information of different kind or trying to find a specific point on a map and obtain the information corresponding to that location. Finding this information is especially tricky in scenarios where a user is trying to find the closest nearby object, for example a toilet or a bench.AR offers an alternativeUX which removes the need for the user to study a detailed map, instead seeing the objects in the real world through the phone. This thesis will therefore, focus on determining ifAR can improve theUX compared to conventional 2D methods by using geographic information systems (GIS) to visualize nearby city service objects throughAR.

1.2 Purpose AR is today one of the most popular upcoming technologies and as time goes on it will become more attractive as the tools for developing it keep improving. This thesis gives valuable knowledge on how nearby objects can be found more comfortably by visualizing it differently, understanding situations where users are on the move. This thesis can also serve as a basis for howAR in the future could potentially be used for car navigation to visualize what would be the quickest way to a destination or displaying nearby objects. Anyone interested in the future ofAR could be potential readers of this work as it will indicate howAR in combination with GIS is perceived by users today.

1.3 Scope The problem itself will be to determine if the use ofAR from aUX point of view will be better than ordinary 2D methods to visualize nearby objects. A demonstration ofAR will be constructed to be compared to usual 2D means of visualizing, for example a map with a search function to complement it. One of the most significant challenges will be to accurately analyze the experiences from the participants in the study conducted to make sure that the conclusion is sound and not based on inadequate sample size, subjective results or a skewed sample pool of users.

The demonstration ofAR will not be used in any official environment for this project but in- stead act as a way to analyze the problem statement. The application will be limited to Android software-based phones as developing an application also for iOS will not be possible in the time- frame of the thesis.

1.4 Ethics and sustainability The goal of replacing conventional 2D methods withAR is a noble one which could improve the UX experience significantly if done correctly. IfAR would get applied more there are some ethical concerns that are present in most technologies today such as potential hazard due to focusing too much on theAR experience. When Pokémon Go was released there was a significant amount of media coverage, especially when there were accidents caused by the focus the user put on theAR experience [7]. IfAR would become more of a norm the danger will increase, if it were implemented in cars, the potential accidents would be a lot more severe. Another point worth considering is that when usingAR it can seem that the users are filming. In today’s society, the focus on privacy is higher than ever, ifAR becomes more popular how willAR usage be distinguished from filming? These questions will get increasingly important asAR progress forward and create a needed discussion regardingARs sustainability.

2 2 Background

In the background, the history and current techniques for developingAR will be presented followed by an explanation of howUX is defined and its connection toAR. Then a short description of GIS will be given followed by an overview of related work to this thesis.

2.1 Augmented Reality AR is an area that is closely related toVR in that both utilize a subset of the same tools but for different purposes [4], [5]. Both technologies are subsets of what is called mixed reality (MR) that uses various techniques, for instance mobile devices, head-mounted displays (HMD), projection and movement tracking systems [3].VR creates a computer-generated virtual environment that can be interacted with at any time.AR on the other hand takes the real world through a camera of some kind and allows the user to interact with it by placing out virtual objects such as images, objects, and audio in real time.AR is also based on the positioning of the device in some of the applications, allowing for abstraction of large amounts of data as it will only show the data nearby. The three main characteristics that definesAR[4] are the following:

• AR combines real and virtual information. • AR is interactive in real time.

• AR operates and is used in a 3D environment.

One of the best examples ofAR and these characteristics is a heads-up-display, that can be seen in Figure2. It provides the pilot with an overlay of useful flight information on the cockpit window.

Figure 2: Fighter Jet Heads-up-display [4].

The beginning ofAR’s history started in 1962 when Morton Heilig revealed a simulator for driving a motorcycle known as Sensorama [4], [5]. Sensorama is considered to be one of the first examples showing the same characteristics asVR today. Six years later in 1968, Ivan Sutherland presented an application called The Sword of Damocles that can be seen in Figure1. The Sword of Damocles was the first real example of a product usingAR technology and one of the earliest ancestors of today’sAR andVR displays [3].

In 1975, seven years after the first realAR product, the next breakthrough in AR was made when Myron Krueger developed an application called Videoplace, that made it possible for inter- action with virtual objects [4], [5]. This application is demonstrated in Figure3, and the user can be seen interacting with the virtual objects.

There was then some time before another significant development happened withinAR. In 1992, 17 years later, Tom Caudell and David Mizell formulated the termAR[4]. The term got further defined in 1997 when Ronald Azuma identified the three earlier mentioned characteristics forAR [5]. This lead to that theAR application development started to speed up. For example, the NaviCam in 1996, D’Fusion in 1999, AR-Quake and BARS in 2000 and Archeoguide and RWWW were created in 2001. The list continues and with every new application,AR progressed further. This progress lead to founding of Total Immersion in 1999 that would become one of the leading

3 Figure 3: Demonstration of Videoplace [4]. providers ofAR solutions. The same year, Hirokazu Katu launched the open source tool ARToolKit which was the first example ofAR using 3D graphics together with video capture. Today, almost 20 years later, this is still an active tool for development ofAR.

The progress continues and more tools seen today start getting developed. In 2004 Mathias Möhring introduced a system for tracking 3D markers on mobile phones, which began the mo- bile part ofAR development [4]. Nokia continued this development in 2006 by starting a research project MARA to further develop knowledge about mobileAR. In 2008 Mobilizy released Wikitude that ten years later still is an active development tool forAR. The framework focus on visualizing Wikipedia entries by the use of GPS and compass data through a smartphone with the help of the camera.

AR is, from what has been presented, a relatively new area that is being developed further every day, giving it more and more exposure. One reason behind the recently increased development is that smartphones are beginning to catch up with the technology needed to develop applications [4], [11]. Another catalyst is the recently increased development ofVR that has increased the general knowledge about 3D visualization as a whole. A final important factor was the release of the mobile game Pokémon GO [7] that raised awareness aroundAR and with the progress of open sourceAR it spiked an interest in its development [11].

2.1.1 Separations Building upon this history, a separation betweenAR products has started to emerge to distinguish the different techniques used in the creation of AR applications [4]. First, there is a separation based on the method used to interact withAR, and the methods are: 1. Pattern. 2. Outline. 3. Location. 4. Surface. The pattern method visualizes anAR model based on the identification of a particular shape or marker of some kind [4]. When it has identified the shape or marker, it produces an image or 3D element of some sort on that pattern. The second method is the outline that works similarly but only focuses on the part of the body, for instance, a hand, face or similar features. It then produces an image or 3D object on that area such as the pattern method. The third method is called location and is when a global positioning system (GPS) or similar tools are used to place AR objects at a specific location. The fourth and last method is called surface which uses the identification of surfaces, such as walls, screens or floors. The application then responds by placing out objects if they are touched.

There is another separation made inAR, based on the hardware used to visualizeAR[4], [5], [12]. The separations are the following:

4 1. Mobile handheld displays, also known as MAR. 2. Video spatial displays and Spatial Augmented Reality. 3. Wearable displays.

The first category includes all the technologies utilizing precisely what it states, mobile handheld displays [4]. The most obvious example are smartphones that use an application to visualizeAR. The second category is more diffuse but includes all the applications where a camera is used to identify anAR marker and replace it with anAR object. The second category also includes the use of video projectors, holograms or similar tools for visualizing objects where the device needs to be stationary. The third category is, as it sounds, all the applications utilizing wearable devices such as HMD and glasses. This category is often the one that is given the most attention, as the same hardware is used forVR.

2.1.2 Development There are several ways of developingAR and some more or less need previous programming expe- rience while some do not need any prior programming experience [13]. There exist a large selection of tools forAR development with different features and focuses [14], [15]. A smaller segment con- sisting of the more popular software development kits (SDK) are presented in Table1 and Table2. The tools have different edges compared to each other, some focusing on specialties, for example ArCore developed for Android only but with more integration than the rest. Others focus on being as flexible as possible such as Metaio that is cross-platform, uses common web techniques, 3D rendering and has several features but is not as specialized compared to other tools.

SDK Platform Edge ARCore Android Google developed, Android focus ARMedia iOS & Android Cross-platform, smart glasses compatibility ARToolKit iOS & Android & Windows Modular framework, open source D’Fusion iOS & Android & Windows Cross-platform, face tracking Metaio iOS & Android & Windows 3D rendering, use of XML, HTML & JavaScript Vuforia iOS & Android Superior image recognition Wikitude iOS & Android Hybrid tracking, HTML support

Table 1: AR SDK and their properties [14], [15], [16].

SDK GPS IMU Face Natural Fea- 3D object tures √ √ √ √ ARCore √ √ X √ √ ARMedia X √ ARToolKit √X √X √X √ √X D’Fusion √ √ √ √ √ Metaio √ √ Vuforia √X √X X √ Wikitude X X

Table 2: Comparison based on tracking [15], [16].

There are also high-level programming environments that provide a broad set of functions forAR development, making each tool considerably complex resulting in time-consuming programming. Examples of these kinds of tools are Studierstube built upon ArToolKitPlus, and osgART which is a combination of ARToolKit and OpenSceneGraph [13]. A few tools that do not require programming experience are called GUI-based tools such as APRIL, AMIRE and DART [13].

2.2 User Experience UX is defined as a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use and anticipated use of a product, system or service [17]. Using more general terms, it is how someone perceives

5 the experience of a specific application before and after usage. Due to that, an evaluation ofUX requires to conduct an interview both before and after. This approach determines how the results change after the user has interacted with the application. Another aspect is the balance between short-time and long-time experiences asUX can change over time. This change is based on that the user discovers new things that are not obvious from the start but become apparent after using an application for a more extended period.

WithinUX evaluations there is an important distinction to be made in comparison to usabil- ity evaluation [17].UX evaluation includes usability evaluation, for example how an user executes a task given. There are several tasks that can be evaluated, such as how many clicks, errors made and amount of help provided. Usability evaluation is often not enough as it is based on subjective data which is whyUX evaluation includes additional elements. These elements can be relating to how a user feel about the application tested dependent on the approach that was chosen which is also subjective. All these methods are subjective but in combination they form a less subjective result [9]. In Table3 an overview is presented of how 96 known UX methods apply based on specific attributes where n represents how many of the 96 methods apply to the attribute. The availability, for example refers to 56 of the methods where 66% are available for free. The other attributes further classify 96 methods in terms of information source, location, product development phase, period of experience, type of collected data, applications/designs, time requirements and origin of the method. The form also has the open questions 14 to 18, but those were not presented in any detail in the paper for each method [17]. The conclusion from the table is that there exists a large amount ofUX methods but the majority are limited based on the listed attributes.

6 Table 3: Evaluation of knownUX methods [17].

UX also differs depending on the user interface (UI) with the critical distinction thatUI does not equalUX. This is instead a part ofUX in the same way as usability is a part ofUX[18].

2.2.1 Augmented Reality User Experience AR is in terms ofUX often correlated to MAR as that is where a majority of the development ofAR exists, but also whereUX research differ from conventional methods, and new tools forUX need to be considered [19]. In 2014 a review of currentUX methods for MAR was conducted leading to the conclusion that it is becoming more and more critical to create an understanding ofUX regard- ing MAR development [9]. From the study it became apparent that the combination of MAR and UX is a relatively new area, as there were only a few articles before 2005 touching upon the subject.

In 2015 a framework was presented for designing and evaluating MAR applications [10]. This framework consists of the components listed in Table4. These parameters help to judge how well designed a MAR product is. They define this better compared to the traditionalUX methods as research has shown [10].

7 MAR components Design Elements Information Rich, lively, relevant, provide the user with content placement of content, the stability of 3D content, user control over the 3D content Functionality and Reliable, useful, user support (feedback low performance physical efforts), and relevance to the reality, embedded content, personalization of specific content and versatile features. Presentation User-friendly menus, ease of use, straightforward interaction, ease of learning Interaction Positive interaction, simplicity, intuition

Table 4: MAR components and Design Elements [10]

Using MAR products, they will invoke emotional, aesthetic and meaningful experiences according to the framework [10]. An interview-based study in 2014 with 15 participants was conducted to determine how users experienced MAR[20]. 67% found the MAR experience playful, 54% found it lively, 47% found it inspirational and 27% found it captive as can be seen in Figure4.

Figure 4: Aesthetic experience of participants [20].

2.3 Geographic Information Systems GIS is a vital part of today’s society even if the term itself is not well known. When using different kinds of navigation services such as GPS and Google maps, GIS is part of the technology behind it. GIS is used to store geographic spatial data in the form of coordinates, dimensions, height and more information about where objects are located in the world [21]. GIS also contains additional data such as the properties of different objects such as height, length, and weight. All technologies started somewhere, and GIS is no exception. The technology has its origins on paper in the form of maps, sometimes with several layers to demonstrate height. In the 1960s Canada built one of the first modern GIS, consisting of the same properties used in today’s systems. This system was a breakthrough, as it made it possible to work with this data dynamically, changing the properties, showing visualizations of them, analyze them and add new data. This was a significant change compared to before when the maps were entirely static and not easily modified.

2.4 Related Work In this chapter related work will be overviewed. Partly it is represented in Table5 and partly in the following text, covering analysis done on that table. The results consist of ten sources, ranging between the years of 2011 to 2017 with different origins. It shows that there is a significant amount of research done about bothAR andUX.

From the selected sources about half were based on literature studies forming conclusions from those. The other half was based more on qualitative interviews with some inclusions of quantita- tive studies. In a majority of the sources, the whole content was not relevant, as the focus was on

8 something specific and applies the knowledge based on that. The investigative studies containing qualitative interviews were often based on small sample sizes, the results and conclusions found in those are questionable and are not be able to prove something on their own but can be seen as indications of possible outcomes. It also became apparent that not all the research was relevant from anAR standpoint due to thatAR is often categorized into three different types which are mainly differentiated by the hardware they are used in [4]. Therefore the results of the study are mostly sources where MAR has been used.

When looking closer at sources regardingUX, there was a large amount of research covering the subject, but the majority covering general knowledge [17][18] or was based on user studies with limited sample sizes[8][22][18][23][7].UX can be divided into the categories of origin, type of data, type of application, collected data, information sources, location, the period of experience and development. All of these are relevant when categorizing what a specific method can be used for and specifically for this thesis which can be applied to MAR.

There is also a small number of sources covering the interaction between ordinaryUX and MAR that, for example, identifies four design elements which are information content, functionality and performance, presentation and interaction[9][10]. Another important fact from those sources is that there is a central gap in the literature on how to design a quality experience for MAR[9]. This fact confirms part of the purpose of this thesis and this gap is described in the follow-up study by the same authors[10].

The resulting sources provide a solid base for this thesis, also indicating there is a broad set of existing research on bothAR andUX but the combination of both technologies is not fully explored. From the collected sources, each includes a comprehensive set of sources that can be used to support this thesis. Several of the references were in some regards similar when it comes to theUX part, as it has gotten adopted from other areas. For example, the mention of the four MAR parameters information content, functionality and performance, presentation and interaction appear in several papers especially tailored for analyzingUX when using MAR.

TheAR sources were also consistent in the way they presented the history of the field and the different types ofAR. The research in the papers around the field varied on several points, which most likely is due to the variety of the applications using the technique. The quality of most of the sources picked out are in high regard, the exception being the three student theses included. The reason for their inclusion is that they contain several valuable sources cited and the nature of the work executed in them are similar to this thesis. They are therefore a relevant source for additional related work to cite but the actual content in the sources cannot be held to the same standard as other scientific sources published in journals. The student theses did cover a significant amount of relevant information for this thesis as they presented potential areas for usage ofAR in navigation and usage ofAR both inside museums and bringing the experience from museum outside[8][22][23].

This chapter concludes that there is a significant amount of research done aboutAR andUX but limited sources covering the interaction betweenAR andUX. There is previous work covering specific usage ofAR andUX, but mostly done by students, where the results have been question- able due to the limited sample size. Previous research on the area has come up with preliminary user experience methods to be used forAR, but the consensus concludes that it is hard to measure UX especially if it is forAR. Through using specific parameters such as the four MAR parameters, quality can be measured but is still somewhat subjective.

9 Method for Study Purpose Design Selection data collection Results Conclusion Bernelind, S. An investigative study ifAR An Ten people in A A large set of data AR is not necessarily when (2015) [8]. is or can be used for improving investigative the age of qualitative of the parameters walking compared to Google navigation. study. 23-37 years set of described in [10]. Maps but when driving it old. interviews. has potential.

Irshad, S., & Designing and evaluating the A A large set Literature MAR components: Highlights the components Rambli, D.R.A. UX of MAR applications. comparative of articles. study. - Information needed to design the MAR (2015) [10]. study to content products and demonstrates the build a - Functionality different types of experiences framework and performance invoked by the use of such for MAR - Presentation products in a particular - Interaction time span.

Irshad, S., & An effort to summarize the A A large set Literature A central gap in the literature It is evident from the number Rambli, D.R.A. current research regarding summarizing of articles. study. has been identified on of findings that there is a need (2014).[9] UX of MAR. study. how to design for a to addressUX related issues quality experience of likeUX evaluation in MAR. users in MAR.

Kipper, G. A summarization of what A A large set Literature A comprehensive Augmented Reality is just (2013) [4]. AR is, can be used for and summarizing of articles. study. summary ofAR. starting to break out of the potential for the future. study. its infancy.

Lando, E. Aid the development and An 12 subjects, A Vague quantitative The qualitative data suggest (2017) [22]. design ofAR applications investigative age of 18 qualitative/ results and positive that In-world space have more at museum settings. study. and above, quantitative qualitative results. aspects that would benefit no prior set of learning. knowledge. interviews.

Lawhead, J. Teaching how to perform A A large set Literature A comprehensive guide Not applicable to this book. (2015) [21]. geospatial, modeling, and summarization of articles. study. on how to use Python GIS analysis with Python. for teaching to approach geospatial purposes. analysis effectively.

Marcus, A., To elaborates on the Case studies Examples Literature A case study covering “Different UI, Same UX” is a Kim, S.W., definition of from the study. leading industry design concept not only Jo, H.K. & “Different UI, Same UX”. industry. companies as design applicable to 3-Screens but to a Ha, D.Y. examples of “Different broader range of design domains. (2011) [18]. UI, Same UX.”

Marshall, T. How to design an Android An Users A Through the interviews, Same as the Results. (2011) [23]. application that usesAR investigative between qualitative it was clear that the to help users navigate in study. the age of set of users thought that it the city of Stockholm. 20 and 35 interviews. was possible to move years old. experience of the museum into the streets of a city.

Pyae, A., To investigate players An A selection A The findings from the The findings show that the Luimula, M., engagement and investigative of 8 qualitative pilot study showed that participants were moderately & Smed, J. immersion in playing study. participants. set of the number of daily and engaged and immersed in the (2017) [7]. AR-based mobile games in Mean age of interviews. weekly hours that the gameplay. which physical movements 29 years old. participants spent on the in the real world are largely gameplay have declined required to play the game. over the past two months.

Vermeeren, A., To summarize UX evaluation A A large set Literature The methods could be six methodological developments Law, E., methods from academia and summarizing of articles. study. categorized as the origin and further research questions Roto, V., industry with different study. of the method, type of evaluation methods are needed Obrist, J., approaches. collected data, type of on UX. Marianna, H. application, information & Mattila, K. sources, location, period (2010) [17]. of experience, development and other requirements.

Table 5: Analysed sources

10 3 Methods

This chapter will cover the approach to combine bothUX andAR used to achieve the results of this thesis. This is comprised by both the quantitative and qualitative study. The qualitative study will include the designed experiment, development of theAR demonstration and the semistructured interviews.

3.1 Quantitative Study To determine how anAR application for finding nearby city services would be received, a quanti- tative study was set up in the form of a survey. A qualitative study would gain excellent results onUX, for example, but since it is time-consuming and the sample size is small, the quantitative study was used to enforce the knowledge gained from the qualitative study. The full extent of the questions can be found in AppendixA which are the questions included in the survey that was sent out. This survey was sent out through the use of several social media groups on Facebook, over email and to the participants of the experiment. In total 105 people participated in the study which was designed to find out the general knowledge aboutAR, how widely it is used and on which devices. It will also determine how users experience looking up nearby objects and what tools they used to achieve that. A question specific to whether the participants used Google Maps was added, as it is the most conventional way to look for objects today and displaying it through 2D maps.

3.2 Qualitative Study A qualitative study was constructed to gather information on how users experienced interacting with anAR prototype which ten users participated in at separate occasions. In this chapter the target group first will be explained and then how the construction of theAR prototype was done and then finally how the experiment was set up.

3.2.1 Target Group The ten test subjects participating in this study were gathered based on the criteria that they had used a smartphone before. The age, gender, location and occupation of each test subject were documented, but the participants have not be limited based on any of those factors. The reason for this is that the intent is to determine if theUX ofAR applications compared to conventional 2D applications are better for locating nearby city services such as public toilets, benches and trash cans. If other criteria such as age, location and occupation were included, it would potentially make the results biased as it would only provide theUX experience of that segment of users while the study aims to cover the general findings from smartphone users. The selection of participants was done according to the method of quota sampling aiming to create a good age and gender distribution with varied backgrounds [24]. Participants were contacted in advance to set up a day that suited them at about five PM or a bit later, this to ensure the condition was as close to the same as possible. There were three interviews made during the weekend where the time was closer to 2 PM but the conditions in terms of environment was the same as it would be during a weekday at around 5 PM.

3.2.2 The Augmented Reality Application The device chosen for evaluation of the project was a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is an Android-based device with the motivation that there is more previous research into iOS compared to Android- based devices. A second phone Samsung Galaxy S4 was also used to record the think-aloud sessions during the experiments but was not a part of the interactions the participants performed. The application used for the experiment was developed through the use of ARCore that is offered by Google and uses Java-based classes for programming. ARCore was chosen as it is specialized for Android only and is developed directly by Google. The base of the application was built upon an open source tool called ARCore-Location developed with ARCore. The tool gives the possibility to place out annotations or pictures in the real world through the use of the camera of a phone. For this thesis, only annotations were used for a betterUX because the 2D features were clunky and 3D examples were not too developed yet. The prototype was built very simplistic to focus

11 on the evaluation of theAR experience including only functionality of the annotation placement, surface indication and pattern identification dots visible for the user. No direct interaction except moving the phone around was possible in the prototype. The annotations are placed at their GPS coordinates and the phone puts them on the device, in the correct geographic direction from the GPS location of the phone which can be seen in Figure5. There are surface identifiers visualized in the application and blue dots to identify the surrounding objects for the application also visible in Figure5. The battery drain was also measured by leaving the application open for ten minutes and then doing the same for the Google Maps application to compare the performance. This measurement was done as it is a vital for todays applications to not be too battery intensive as most do not have the possibility to charge their phone during the day.

(a) Screenshot with annotations and surface identifiers (b) Example of the phone with the AR prototype

Figure 5: Demonstration of the prototype

3.2.3 The Experiment An experiment was set up to gain valuable insights on how users experienced AR when getting to interact with a liveAR prototype compared to the more static answers acquired by the initial quantitative study. For that, anAR application was produced to demonstrate howAR can be used to find nearby objects. For the experiment, all the users participating were made aware that the results were anonymous and would only be used to form results and conclusions for this thesis and the recording would not be made public. All participants were also informed that theAR ap- plication was a prototype and not a finished product to ensure that they took it into consideration and not lead to a negative experience based on expecting a fully developed application.

The design of the experiment involves three parts and the first is an initial questionnaire which is the same as the one used in the quantitative study. The form is filled out for the same reasons as

12 before, to gather a baseline on the questions included in AppendixA. The second part is a case study including the demonstration of theAR prototype where the participant gets to navigate through using the prototype from Odenplan to a public toilet in Vasaparken. The route was 600 meter long, located in central Stockholm and can be seen in Figure6. The route was chosen to test the prototype both in a crowded environment and with obstacles in the path such as traffic lights and outdoor seatings. It was also chosen to test the prototype, about half the way had buildings surrounding the phone and half without it, to test the GPS accuracy. During the navigation, the participants were asked to think aloud, which means saying what they are thinking while using the application. The interactions were recorded with the user’s permissions and used as part of the re- sults for this thesis. After the navigation was complete, a semistructured interview was conducted by using the questions in AppendixB as a base but expanding on them keeping the conversation more fluid and fruitful. The questions were determined by an initial pilot study and the identified MAR parameters forUX taken into account [10]. The initial pilot study that was conducted by interviewing potential participants in the experiment, testing the think-aloud and conducting free questions during and after the interaction with the application.

Figure 6: Demonstration of Experiment Route

3.3 Collection of Data The collection of data was divided into two separate parts, one focused on quantitative data and the other on qualitative data. The first part was the distribution of the quantitative survey to have a smaller sample size to analyze. The distribution was done by using social media groups such as Facebook, over email and through participants in the experiment. The data collection was done through a Google form that the user filled out without any supervision after getting access to the link provided. The questions were divided into two parts, first with a section of general things about the participant and a second more focused aroundAR which can be seen in AppendixA.

The second part was based on a more qualitative approach to gather in-depth knowledge about how each user experienced using a more traditional 2D application compared to using anAR ap- plication. The way the experiment was set up was that the user first got to answer the quantitative form before using the product in any way. This procedure was done to gather a baseline on what the user knew aboutAR to start off with and also to make use of the whole user experience includ- ing both pre-experimental interview data and post-experimental data [17]. During the prototype testing phase, more data was gathered from the participant’s think-aloud that was recorded in an audio file during the navigation to the public toilet. This recording included both the inter- actions with the application and experiences of the participant during the navigation. They also express what they thought when they encountered problems such as the annotation showing the wrong direction and there were a conversation going, encouraging the users to share their thoughts. Finally, a separate audio recording of the semistructured interview was made to gain additional knowledge, taking advantage of the freedom that semistructured interviews and the flexibility in how the questions are asked and can be expanded on [25]. The semistructured design of the inter- view can sometimes be biased if it is not executed correctly. The combination of the quantitative results in some regard limited this and avoiding asking leading questions to the participants [24]. Phrases such as "Tell me about...", "Could you explain a bit more about what you meant by...?",

13 "How do you feel about...?" and "Could you describe...?" were used to limit the potential biased way of asking the questions.

14 4 Results

In this chapter, the compiled results from the interviews will be presented together with the separations based on how users answered vital questions, to get a more extensive understanding of how users with different previous knowledge aboutAR answer the questions.

4.1 Quantitative Study The quantitative study through the use of a Google form received 105 participant’s answers with a majority being male and the the average age was 28 which can been seen in Figure7. The occupations varied, although about a third were students and about 44% of the total participants were from Sweden. The complete distribution can be seen in AppendixC.

(a) Gender distribution (b) Age distribution

Figure 7: Age and gender distribution for the quantitative study

From the participants, 77% had heard aboutAR before and the amount that had used it was 49% as can be seen in Table6. The majority which consisted of 66% had no problems looking up things when on the move and the majority used Google Maps to find nearby places. There were a few other maps applications mentioned like Apple Maps, Facebook, Foursquare, GPS, TomTom, Tripadvisor, Waze, and Beam but they were a small minority compared to the usage of Google Maps. The result indicates the majority of the participants in the study believe thatAR can be a way of replacing conventional means to find nearby objects. More detailed results can be found in AppendixC.

Question Yes No Other Have you heard about Augmented reality (AR) before? 81 (77%) 24 (23%) N/A Have you used Augmented reality (AR) before? 51 (49%) 54 (51%) N/A Do you find it difficult to look up things on the move? 27 (26%) 69 (66%) 9 (8%) Do you use Google maps to find new places nearby? 92 (88%) 13 (12%) N/A Do you think Augmented reality can be a way of replacing conventional means (2D map with pins, for example 68 (65%) 16 (15%) 21 (20%) Google Maps) of looking up nearby objects?

Table 6: Quantitative questions results

4.2 Qualitative Study In total there were ten participants in the experiment and the gender distribution are six men and four women with age ranging from 20 to 59 with the average age of 39 which can be seen in Figure 8. The occupations of the participants includes three working within healthcare where two are nurses and one a doctor. There are also four students where two studies Computer Science, one psychology and one music. The remaining participants are an entrepreneur, a seller and a project leader but all ten participants had in common that they live in Sweden.

15 (a) Gender distribution (b) Age distribution

Figure 8: Age and gender distribution for the qualitative study

Two of the participants had no previous Android experience, but the remaining eight participants had used Android phones before. Five participants had heard aboutAR before, and the amount that had used it before was only one participant which can be seen in Table7. Eight participants found it difficult looking up things when on the move and eight participants used Google Maps to find nearby places. Outside of Google Maps, "hitta.se" and Google were mentioned as other applications used, but they were a small minority compared to the usage of Google Maps as only one user used "hitta.se". Eight of the participants in the study believe thatAR can be a way of replacing conventional means of finding nearby objects. The remaining questions can be found in AppendixD.

Question Yes No Other Have you heard about Augmented reality (AR) before? 5 (50%) 5 (50%) N/A Have you used Augmented reality (AR) before? 1 (10%) 9 (90%) N/A Do you find it difficult to look up things on the move? 8 (80%) 2 (20%) 0 (0%) Do you use Google maps to find new places nearby? 8 (80%) 2 (20%) N/A Do you think Augmented reality can be a way of replacing conventional means (2D map with pins, for example 8 (80%) 2 (20%) 0 (0%) Google Maps) of looking up nearby objects?

Table 7: A segment of the qualitative questions result for the experiments participants

4.3 The Experiment The experiment took, based on the recordings, about 13 minutes on average for the think-aloud where Google Maps estimated eight minutes to travel the distance by foot. It should be taken into account that the three traffic lights on the route probably increased the Google Maps estimate by one to three minutes. For the semistructured interviews, the recordings took on average around 11 minutes, including walking back to the origin point of the route of the experiment. The battery usage during the experiment was higher for theAR prototype that drained nine percent compared to Google Maps that drained four percent when both applications were active for a period of ten minutes on a Samsung Galaxy S7.

4.3.1 Think Aloud From the navigational part of the experiment, through the use of theAR application, a significant amount of knowledge was gained in the form of observations, first impressions and unexpected situations. In all of the interviews, suggestions of improvements were made regarding bug fixes, functionalities andUX, although some of the solutions were similar between participants.

1. Five of the participants pointed out that they got the feeling that other surrounding people were experiencing that the participant was filming them due to the nature of how the phone is held when usingAR.

2. Six of the participants expressed some concern about that if they were in an area not familiar to them, it would be hard to navigate with theAR application compared to, for example,

16 Google Maps as that provides more of an overview and theAR map also shows the linear distance which could be problematic in the case of obstacles. 3. Four of the participants raised concerns about having to pay active attention to the phone which could take the focus away from potentially checking what is going on left and right as the environment that can be seen through the camera will take priority. The same problem was experienced with, for example, Google Maps but not at all times, due to the navigation being more passive with such an application. A potential solution that was suggested for this was to use Google glasses implementingAR to avoid that or using a separate camera for recording. 4. Another concern raised by all participants was the GPS accuracy as the prototype at times thought it was located in another position than the actual one which positioned the marker for the toilet in an inaccurate direction. 5. There was also some confusion initially with all participants when starting up the application, as the annotations took a few seconds to show and some users were facing the wrong direction which leads to that the annotations will not show. Suggestions to solve this were, for example, a quick guide to pop up at the start of the application. 6. All of the participants asked about what the blue dots and the surface identification did in theUX and were unsure about if they were supposed to interact with it in some way or not. 7. Two of the participants pointed out that the marker for the objects was not optimal for the UX as the exact location could be both at the bottom of the marker or to the right of the marker. A solution would be to make the marker more clear with an arrow for example.

4.3.2 Semistructured interviews The results from the semistructured interviews were based on the questions in AppendixB but also expanding on the questions and letting the conversation flow in the direction that was taken and adding in the next question when a topic reached the end.

1. All of the participants agreed that it was a more natural way to navigate by using the AR map than trying to figure out the direction based on a 2D map and finding locations there. 2. It was agreed across the participants that the application itself could use some improve- ment, partly by fixing bugs and partly by improving the GPS accuracy always to place the annotations correctly. 3. TheUI, all participants agreed was intuitive, but the understanding of it at the first impres- sion was not completely clear and needed a short explanation of what the surface identification and blue dots meant. 4. Four of the participants mentioned that the phone was getting warm when they used it which in itself did not create discomfort but that it most likely increased the battery drain. 5. Six of the participants expressed that they felt minor discomfort using the application because of the way the user has to hold the phone to be able to see the annotations. 6. There were mixed results on what was needed for the participants to want to use theAR prototype in their daily life and how they thought it would be able to help them. One of the suggestions was tourism made by two participants, another when exploring a new area of the town made by three users and adding more features like trash cans and benches by 5 participants. 7. All the participants agreed that additional features would be a welcomed with the condition that there was an option to filter them and filter the range of objects projected.

4.4 MAR Parameters This chapter demonstrates how the results can be interpreted based on the MAR parameters. The questions used in this thesis was constructed taking these parameters in mind.

17 4.4.1 Information Content From the observations made during the interactions with the prototype all participants felt that the placement of content lacked in terms of consistency. The cause was that the GPS identified the wrong direction at times which resulted in that the phone was projecting the objects in the wrong direction. When the annotation was placed correctly, the consensus was that it was an exciting and relevant way to navigate and theUI was flowing smoothly. About half of the participants experienced they wanted to be able to control the 3D interface more in some regard, for example by being able to select a specific annotation to focus on when navigating. It was also suggested that the content could be improved by adding additional object types, a possibility to filter them and limit the area for objects to be projected to avoid clutter.

4.4.2 Functionality and Performance The majority of the participants made remarks on that the phone was getting a bit warm when interacting with the prototype due to high power consumption. The performance in the form of time spent for navigating with the application is as presented worse than Google Maps which partly connects to first time usage and the think-aloud that was done at the same time. The power consumption comparison on a Samsung Galaxy S7 also showed that theAR prototype is 125% higher than Google Maps. Do note that the power consumption of theAR prototype is not optimized as the majority of the calculations are done locally, and further optimizations are still to be made. The participants felt the functionality had potential but wanted additional features and stability from the application before they would consider using it in their daily lives.

4.4.3 Presentation Half of the participants expressed the concern that if they downloaded the application on their own without any guidance, the surface identification would be confusing to understand and lack the instructions in connection to it. It was also presented that the navigation annotations for the objects could be complicated to determine precisely where to navigate. All participants agreed that the learning aspect of the application was fast and straightforward once they received a few starting instructions.

4.4.4 Interaction All participants agreed on that the application was very intuitive and simplistic during the inter- views to use. The participants did lack some tools to interact with the prototype directly such as a compass to update the direction manually or a way to choose a specific point to navigate to in the prototype.

18 5 Discussion

This chapter will cover a discussion about how the research question of this thesis was answered by the results, covering subjectivity, sample size and the chosen evaluation of the results. Then it continues to discuss the approach selected in the method chapter and what could have been done differently or been improved upon for the thesis. Finally, future work of the thesis will be discussed and what this thesis can contribute to in the future.

5.1 The Results In this thesis, the goal was to determine ifAR could be a replacement for conventional 2D methods for visualizing GIS data to find nearby city services. From the results of the quantitative study, it can be seen that the majority consisting of about 69% believes it will be a way to replace con- ventional means of looking up nearby objects such as city services. It is important to consider that from the total participants only 48% have usedAR before which means that not everyone will know how it is to interact with the technology and how it is visualized. There were 76% that have heard about the technology before which means that there is only about 24% that will not know what the technology is about. This means they most likely only determined their answer if it could replace conventional 2D techniques based on the picture provided in the form.

It is important to consider that the sample size of the quantitative study is a small part of the overall possible user ofAR which could be considered almost anyone in the world. Therefore the results from the quantitative study are not reliable on their own but provide support to the conclu- sion from the qualitative study. With a larger sample size, the results would be more reliable but as the overall purpose is to investigate the general population that had used a smartphone before, the sample size would always be small compared to the possible users in the world. This is the case as regardless of the spread of the form it is not realistic to gather enough answers to reflect that population fully. Limiting the target group could have been a possible solution but that would defeat that purpose of the study as it would only gather the opinions on a small user base and not reflect all possible solutions. Instead, a smaller sample size was accepted and the focus was put on the qualitative study which contained ten qualitative semi-structured interviews which are considered satisfactorily in terms of sample size for a semi-structured interview with an experiment.

The results from the qualitative study concur with the quantitative survey in thatAR could replace more conventional 2D means of looking up nearby objects in the future. Additional find- ings from the qualitative study presented several negative factors but focused more on faults in the prototype rather than theAR experience. The faults can of course not be ignored and should be taken into consideration but not be the sole determiner. In terms of the MAR parameters, the results where mixed partly because of the problems with the prototype but the results sug- gest positive results for all four MAR parameters when the faults in the prototype have been solved.

From the battery drain test conducted comparing Google Maps to theAR prototype, it per- forms 125% worse than Google Maps. This result comes down to optimizations not made in the prototype to put calculations on a cloud service for example, even if the battery performance most likely will perform worse than Google Maps either way considering the more static approach in the application. The battery drain was something unexpected, and in its current state, it is concerning from a functionality perspective as it will drain a user’s smartphone faster than comparable ap- plications. Another thing to consider is the environmental perspective if AR would become more of a norm it will increase the overall power consumption of smartphones. This will impact the environment negatively potentially as more power will be needed but optimizations can most likely avoid this to a certain extent.

Regarding the information content that was found lacking from theAR prototype the most sub- stantial problem was the lack of consistency in the placement of the annotations. This problem is partly caused by the limitations of determining which direction the phone is facing through the use of GPS. It can most likely be solved by using more efficient tools than the phone’s default GPS which makes the placement consistent considering that it works for other applications such as Google Maps. The test was executed on a Samsung Galaxy S7 which is not the newest model, considering it was the oldest model that ARCore had support for, a newer model might in itself

19 improve the consistency of the GPS. The performance took on average five minutes longer than the estimated eight minutes from Google Maps to complete the route, which is understandable consid- ering the think-aloud, the three traffic lights and initial explanation of the application. Regarding presentation, additional instructions on how to get started with the application would be needed for participants to be able to understand right away how the application would work. This could partly be done in the store if published and partly as a small demo in the startup of the application.

From the think-aloud sessions some interesting questions were pointed out, one in particular where the participants felt that other people thought they were getting filmed. This problem comes down to the standards in society. Today the majority that uses a smartphone is aware how the basics of it work.AR is a relatively unknown technique judging from the how many that had used it in the quantitative study.AR requires the users facing the smartphone in the same position as if they would be filming, it raises the question on what is acceptable in today’s society. In a few years from nowAR might be more of a standard, and then this might not have been a problem at all, but today when privacy is a hot topic, this is a considerable concern for the usage of the technique. The reason is that the majority of people do not want to break what is socially acceptable in today’s society and filming someone without consent is a taboo area.

Another interesting question raised was the feeling of having to pay active attention to the phone during the interaction with the prototype. This concern is understandable especially as this was the first time usage of the application which has the user focused on the prototype during the learning process. If a long-term study was made with the participants, it could be determined if that still was an issue after continuous usage. More interesting is the fact that the active focus seems to take the focus away from the navigation making the user potentially ignore looking out for cars or dodging people in their path. IfAR becomes more of a norm in the daily life for find- ing nearby objects, will that increase accidents or injuries because the users are paying too much attention to the phone and if that is the case, isAR sustainable? Possible solutions that were made to avoid this and the previous scenario by the users was, suggesting either the use of Google glasses or a separate camera position on a backpack, for example, to record for the smartphone. This solutions would remove the need to position the phone in front of the user but could be held in a more passive horizontal position similar to the usage position when using Google Maps. Both of these solutions includes extra accessories and with today’s prices for mobile phones it is doubtful the average user would invest into these solutions. IfAR becomes more of a norm it is more likely that the common user will buy the accessories, until then, the solutions forAR will not be able to rely on that the user has bought the accessory.

5.2 The Method Several approaches could have been taken for how to design the method, but the initial quantita- tive study helped to determine how to create the experiment in a way that it would give as much information as possible to analyze, based on the MAR parameters and some initial idea on how widely knownAR was. The relatively large sample size from the quantitative study allowed to categorize responses based on different factors that can be seen in the results. The early selection of what software the prototype would use helped to determine what to expect from a prototype designed with it. SinceAR is further developed on iOS devices, the choice of an Android-based was a logical choice even if an iOS-based prototype might have gotten betterUX results. The reason is to investigate ifAR can be used to improve finding nearby city services. To achieve that, AR would have to work on both Android and iOS considering the results from the quantitative study on which devices the users have used.

The experiment design could have turned out differently if some factors were changed, for in- stance the navigation path in the experiment was straightforward to the goal, adding in more turns could have changed the result. Another factors is if more obstacles like a river or additional buildings were added, the navigation most likely have been more difficult for the user. Since the experiment was carried out from Odenplan to Vasaparken, there were traffic lights on the route and relatively crowded walking paths. The traffic lights and crowd could have influenced the results both positively and negatively as traffic lights slow down the speed but at the same time applies a more realistic factor to the navigation. The crowded paths also add in the same positive factor but

20 risks having the user spend more time on dodging other people than focusing on the interaction with the prototype. The route was in total 600 meters, if it was longer it could have provided more interactions with the prototype, even though it is doubtful, as most of the interactions pointed out from the users were in the first 300 meters of the navigation.

Increasing the number of participants would have been another interesting factor to explore es- pecially in terms of getting even more diversity. Doing a more comprehensive study would have allowed for studying that in more detail or potentially limiting the participants further on some requirement to get more specific results. The two students studying Computer Science were the ones that took the most time to review the application during the navigation compared to the other participants and tried to "break" the prototype. The other users mostly focused on the nav- igation understood the instruction and commented on what happened and how they felt during the think-aloud. This most likely points more towards that the Computer Science students are more used to trying to find errors than the other student, but could also point towards thatAR is intuitive.

5.3 Future Work To continue the work started in this thesis the next step would be to test a completely developed AR product without any substantial faults and with a better user interface to switch between benches, toilets, parking meters and similar city services to find nearby instances of those. With- out that separation,AR risks to get lessUX friendly as there will be too many objects nearby. This is why this experiment was limited to the finding of toilets nearby. The experiment would also need to be expanded to include other city services to adequately judge ifAR is a viable solution to replace the more conventional 2D map methods that currently exist. It would also be interesting to make a comparison between anAR application to find nearby city services with filtering versus a specialized application only for finding nearby public toilets.

There would also be a need to compare applications developed with other tools than ARCore to determine how efficient ARCore handles GPS, rendering and the additional attributes men- tioned in Table2 compared to more established tools to conclude if an application developed by any of those would change the results of this study. There would also be a need to make a com- parison on how such an application works on several types of phones as the GPS performance can be significantly changed between different phones. Another area that also needs exploring is how an application like this would work together with wearable devices like Google Glasses to compare if that solves some of the challenges presented for AR in this paper [26].

21 6 Conclusion

To determine ifAR could replace conventional 2D methods of visualizing nearby GPS locations of city services anAR prototype was created to measure theUX when trying to navigate to a public toilet. The qualitative study using this prototype partly presented negative results but focused more on faults in the prototype rather than the overallAR experience. The other part of the results concerning how the participants experienced the overallAR was positive towards the usage ofAR to located nearby city services. The most significant problems with that the prototype is still relatively unstable on GPS direction performance and there are some issues around how to solve the active attention that is put on the phone.

One of the solutions proposed would be potentially usingAR glasses to avoid paying active atten- tion to the phone. This will most likely degrade theUX because the screen to illustrate theAR objects would be limited to the size of the glasses. The concept ofAR in smartphones is appealing to the majority according to this study but does provide a challenge from a technical perspective for location-based applications. Finally, the results also showed an unexpected problem forAR applications which is that surrounding people tend to believe that they are getting filmed. This is a negative aspect that is unavoidable with the current state ofAR for smartphones but might become more of a norm in the future. The overall conclusion that this work results in is thatAR could be used to improve finding nearby city services but not in its current state.

22 References

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24 Appendices

A Quantitative Interview

The form started off with more of a general part to determine general facts about the participant. 1. What is your gender?

• Male • Female

2. What is your age? 3. What is your occupation? 4. In which country do you live?

The form then continued with more specific questions aboutAR. 1. Which types of smartphones have you used? • iOS based (iPhone) • Android (Samsung, HTC, Sony, Huawei and etc) • Not a smartphone • I don’t know • Other (Open for participant to fill out) 2. Have you heard about Augmented reality (AR) before? • Yes • No 3. Have you used Augmented reality (AR) before? • Yes • No 4. Do you find it difficult to look up things on the move? (For example, if you are going to look up restaurants in the area while moving.) • Yes • No • Other (Open for participant to fill out) 5. Do you use Google maps to find new places nearby? • Yes • No 6. Do you use some other application on your phone for finding things nearby? 7. If you answered Yes, why do you use it? If you answered No, why don’t you use any application like that? 8. Do you think Augmented reality can be a way of replacing conventional means (2D map with pins, for example google maps) of looking up nearby objects?

• Yes • No • Other (Open for participant to fill out)

25 B Post Interview

The qualitative survey is based on these questions but was done in a semistructured interview so additional follow up questions were made and expansions on the questions stated. 1. How did you experience finding nearby objects with the AR application?

2. How did the AR application perform in terms of problems or errors? 3. How did you experience the user interface of the AR application? 4. How did you experience the interaction with the AR application? 5. Did you experience any discomfort when using the AR application?

6. Do you think the AR app would help you in your daily life? 7. Would you use an AR app with additional features like the ability to find benches, trash cans and similar city features?

• Yes • No • Other

8. What would you like to be improved for you to be interested in using this in your daily life? 9. Finally, is there any other information you would like to provide?

26 C Quantitative Interview Results

The form started off with more of a general part to determine general facts about the participant. Question 1-2:

Age and gender distribution for the quantitative study

(a) Gender distribution (b) Age distribution

Question 3:

What is your occupation?

Student (35) Software developer (6) Financial controller Banker Workforce management Retired Production worker Industiral worker Cleaner Web developer Doctor Cook Electrical Engineer Oil Rig Worker Sales Executive Metallurg, GKN retail Head of administration Account manager Salesman Teacher Teacher/Student Social worker welder Stay at home mom Business Analyst Receptionist Employee IT Support Technician Industrial worker Traffic Systems Safety Operator Unemployed Teacher Network Administrator QA Tester Animal rescue Government Administration Construction business Manufacturing Office worker Sales Manager Dentist It Store Support Specialist computer programmer Self Employed Senior Engineer Writer PHP Developer Community Manager/Student Entrepreneur Medical doctor Projektledare Nurse Seller

27 Question 4:

In which country do you live?

The form then continued with more specific questions aboutAR.

Question 1:

Device Amount Android (Samsung, HTC, Sony, Huawei and etc) 66 (63%) iOS based (iPhone) 12 (11%) Other 27 (26%)

Which types of smartphones have you used?

Question 2-3:

(a) The amount of participants that had heard (b) The amount of participants that had used about Augmented Reality Augmented Reality

The amount of participants that heard and used Augmented Reality

28 Question 4-5:

(c) Do you find it difficult to look up things on (d) Do you use Google maps to find new places the move? nearby?

Question 6:

Do you use some other application on your phone for finding things nearby?

Question 7:

If you answered Yes, why do you use it? If you answered No, why don’t you use any?

No need (2), Because its smooth, Sometimes I use Waze. Although it uses the same engine as Google maps it helps filter like gas stations or parking lots better, Google almost always provides the relevant information needed, It’s a convenient way to explore the world and get to know new places, that I wouldn’t find on my own, Google maps covers my requirements, Google Maps is usually enough, To see what I have near me maybe it is interesting to visit, Google maps gives a good basic indication of where to find new places, I like going by guts, Don’t know. I’ve probably not heard of other services that do this better,

29 google maps is more ease of use and availability, To find the best restaurants, I know the place i live very well, Google maps works really well, I’ve had no incentive to try to find alternatives, Google maps does all for me, Google maps works well, I like to use it as it gives me the opportunity to look at stuff nearby as well as on the way if I use the navigation, It is focusing on restaurants, For variety, Trip Advisor for restaurants, Google Maps does all I need, I don’t know any, I normally look up the things I need to know before going out on my computer. Another reason is that I normally do not have internet access on the phone on the move, Ett annat sätt att sortera data, t.ex att söka efter sorter av restauranger snarare än restauranger i närheten, To find stuff i dont exist or where they are located, Trying to find my way, i don’t need to at the moment, never had a need to, navigation, Depends on what I have available. If GPS is installed in my car I will use it. GPS provides a better list of locations of value to me whilst google maps is best at plotting known addresses, Google Maps does the thing, Its better than google Maps, No need or no worthwhile apps, Google is enough, Don’t need any other apps, Maps usually does the job, Easy to navigate, To find places, Google works, Complements Google Map, Its good, I dont feel tye need to, i got a pair of legs and i’m not lazy, I never tried it because I usually have predefined places that I visit, might give it a shot in the future, Convience, MAKES MY LIFE EASYER, I just google what i need, Haven’t been bother yet to look up some apps, becost of work, Wasn’t aware of it, Because of Google, Using TomTom as my Navigation App, also Apple’s own Map App, It’s much faster than trying to orient using a traditional map, it allows me to look up places i’ve never been to, and it’s a natural through for looking at local google results (look up places to eat, see a restaurant, google will point the way), Because I’m unsure where a certain place is, Waze is user updated, google map, Google maps allows me to see info on places and provide their website and contact information, Find the best places, Because Google maps gives me all and more info than I actually need. It is also easily accessible since it comes together, I just don’t generally look things up, it’s a small town, Crowd sourced ranking of restaurants etc,

30 Look for things before going, I am happy with Google maps, Använder bara Google Maps, To find the place I’m looking for, I usually look it up before I go out, I do not know, I have not thought about it, Its often more complicated, different apps for different purposes, Funkarbra, using the phone applications, Google works just fine. why fix something if it’s not broken, It gives me a quick overview of nearby places with review scores so I can see the best ones,

Question 8:

Do you think Augmented reality can be a way of replacing conventional means (2D map with pins, for example google maps) of looking up nearby objects?

31 D Experiment Participants Quantitative Results

(Same as previous appendix but for the participants of the experiment)

Question 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12:

Question Yes No Other Have you heard about Augmented reality (AR) before? 5 (50%) 5 (50%) N/A Have you used Augmented reality (AR) before? 1 (10%) 9 (90%) N/A Do you find it difficult to look up things on the move? 8 (80%) 2 (20%) 0 (0%) Do you use Google maps to find new places nearby? 8 (80%) 2 (20%) N/A Do you think Augmented reality can be a way of replacing conventional means (2D map with pins, for example 8 (80%) 2 (20%) 0 (0%) Google Maps) of looking up nearby objects?

A segment of the qualitative questions result for the experiments participants

Question 2:

What is your age?

20 25 27 28 31 33 47 54 58 59

Question 3:

What is your occupation?

Computer Science student (2) Nurse (2) Music student Psychology student Entrepreneur Medical doctor Projektledare Seller

Question 4 All participants where from Sweden.

Question 5

Which types of smartphones have you used?

Device Amount Android (Samsung, HTC, Sony, Huawei and etc) 8 (80%) iOS based (iPhone) 2 (20%)

Question 10:

Do you use some other application on your phone for finding things nearby?

Other applications Amount No 8 (80%) Hitta.se 1 (10%) Google 1 (10%)

32 Question 11:

If you answered Yes, why do you use it? If you answered No, why don’t you use any application like that?

I am happy with Google maps Använder bara Google Maps To find the place I’m looking for. I usually look it up before I go out I do not know I have not thought about it Its often more complicated, Funkar bra different apps for different purposes using the phone applications No

33 www.kth.se

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