[2303.10546] Supporting Piggybacked Co-Located Leisure Activities via Augmented Reality

Technology, especially the smartphone, is villainized for taking meaning and
time away from in-person interactions and secluding people into “digital
bubbles”. We believe this is not an intrinsic property of digital gadgets, but
evidence of a lack of imagination in technology design. Leveraging augmented
reality (AR) toward this end allows us to create experiences for multiple
people, their pets, and their environments. In this work, we explore the design
of AR technology that “piggybacks” on everyday leisure to foster co-located
interactions among close ties (with other people and pets. We designed,
developed, and deployed three such AR applications, and evaluated them through
a 41-participant and 19-pet user study. We gained key insights about the
ability of AR to spur and enrich interaction in new channels, the importance of
customization, and the challenges of designing for the physical aspects of AR
devices (e.g., holding smartphones). These insights guide design implications
for the novel research space of co-located AR.