How to interact with AR head mounted devices in care work? A study comparing Handheld Touch (hands-on) and Gesture (hands-free) Interaction

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a study investigating augmented reality (AR) to support caregivers. We implemented a system called Care Lenses that supports various care tasks on AR head-mounted devices. For its application, one question was how caregivers could interact with the system while providing care, that is, while using one or both hands for care tasks. Therefore, we compared two mechanisms to interact with the CareLenses (handheld touch similar to touchpads and touchscreens and head gestures). We found that certain head gestures were difficult to apply in practice, but that except from this head gesture support was as usable and useful as handheld touch interaction, although the study participants were much more familiar with the handheld touch control. We conclude that head gestures can be a good means to enable AR support in care, and we provide design considerations to make them more applicable in practice.