Simulating Wearable Urban Augmented Reality Experiences in VR: Lessons Learnt from Designing Two Future Urban Interfaces

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to fundamentally change how people engage with increasingly interactive urban environments. However, many challenges exist in designing and evaluating these new AR experiences, such as technical constraints safety concerns associated outdoor AR. We contribute this domain by assessing use of virtual (VR) for simulating wearable allowing participants interact future interfaces a realistic, safe controlled setting. This paper describes two applications (pedestrian navigation autonomous mobility) simulated VR. Based on thematic analysis interview data collected across studies, we find that VR simulation successfully elicited feedback functional benefits concepts impact contextual factors, concerns, attentional capacity, social considerations. At same time, highlight limitations approach terms interface’s visual quality providing exhaustive information. The concludes recommendations experiences