User evaluation of mobile augmented reality scenarios

Augmented reality (AR) technologies are becoming state-of-the-art in the mobile technology domain. However, developing successful end user services around AR is still in its infancy, which is partially resulting from the lack of user research regarding potential users’ expectations and user acceptance in the particular area. In order to identify the most potential use cases and contexts, in which mobile AR could be utilized, it is important to evaluate already the early service concepts with potential end users. This paper reports an online survey for evaluating the user acceptance of five different mobile AR scenarios, as well as for understanding the potential and risks or mobile AR in general. The results show ambivalent attitudes towards mobile AR services but also imply that the scenarios demonstrating pragmatic relevance were valued over pleasure oriented ones. AR was seen to make contextually relevant information easily available and allow novel interaction possibilities with the physical world. Distrust arose with fears of information flood, users’ loss of autonomy, and virtual replacing the real. The respondents’ level of technological orientation was found to highly affect the overall acceptance of the scenarios. The results help in considering key acceptance issues and potential users’ expectations in the development of future mobile AR services.