Search

Physical props serving as proxies for virtual objects (haptic proxies) offer a cheap, convenient, and compelling way of delivering a sense of touch in virtual reality (VR). To successfully use haptic proxies for VR, they have to be both similar to and colocated with their virtual counterparts. In this article, we introduce a taxonomy organizing techniques using haptic proxies for VR into eight categories based on when the techniques are deployed (offline or real-time), what reality is being manipulated (physical or virtual reality), and the purpose of the techniques (to affect object perception or the mapping between real and virtual objects). Finally, we discuss key advantages and limitations of the different categories of techniques.

Usability evaluations are important to improving handheld augmented reality (HAR) systems. However, no standard questionnaire considers perceptual and ergonomic issues found in HAR. The authors performed a systematic literature review to enumerate these issues. Based on these issues, they created a HAR usability scale that consists of comprehensibility and manipulability scales. These scales measure general system usability, ease of understanding the information presented, and ease of handling the device. The questionnaires' validity and reliability were evaluated in four experiments, and the results show that the questionnaires consistently correlate with other subjective and objective measures of usability. The questionnaires also have good reliability based on the Cronbach's alpha. Researchers and professionals can directly use these questionnaires to evaluate their own HAR applications or modify them with the insights presented in this article.