A User Study of a Prototype of a Spatial Augmented Reality System for Education and Interaction with Geographic Data

Abstract

Recent technological advancements in many areas have changed the way that individuals interact with the world. Some daily tasks require visualization skills, especially when in a map-reading context. Augmented Reality systems could provide substantial improvement to geovisualization once it enhances a real scene with virtual information. However, relatively little research has worked on assessing the effective contribution of such systems during map reading. So, this research aims to provide a first look into the usability of an Augmented Reality system prototype for interaction with geoinformation. For this purpose, we have designed an activity with volunteers in order to assess the system prototype usability. We have interviewed 14 users (three experts and 11 non-experts), where experts were subjects with the following characteristics: a professor; with a PhD degree in Cartography, GIS, Geography, or Environmental Sciences/Water Resources; and with experience treating spatial information related to water resources. The activity aimed to detect where the system really helps the user to interpret a hydrographic map and how the users were helped by the Augmented Reality system prototype. We may conclude that the Augmented Reality system was helpful to the users during the map reading, as well as allowing the construction of spatial knowledge within the proposed scenario.

Keywords

• map-reading tasks
• knowledge construction
• Spatial Augmented Reality system