We investigate the impact of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) on cognitive load and enjoyment in the context of games and immersive experiences. To investigate this issue, we conducted a user study with 60 participants, who played in an escape room either in AR or VR using the same hardware. We measured the mental demands of these technologies both subjectively with standardized questionnaires and objectively with eye-tracking and behavior measurements. Our analysis reveals that the cognitive load in AR is significantly higher than in VR. Moreover, presence and usability were higher in VR despite the same hardware and game used. Thus, our results suggest that AR game designers need to consider increased cognitive load to ultimately enhance user experience and performance. In summary, our findings show the different prerequisites that the two technologies have regarding their impact on cognitive load and enjoyment.

Television has long since been a uni-directional medium. However, when TV is used for educational purposes, like in edutainment shows, interactivity could enhance the learning benefit for the viewer. In recent years, AR has been increasingly explored in HCI research to enable interaction among viewers as well as viewers and hosts. Yet, how to implement this collaborative AR (CoAR) experience remains an open research question. This paper explores four approaches to asynchronous collaboration based on the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model: scaffolding, coaching, modeling, and collaborating. We developed a pilot show for a fictional edutainment series and evaluated the concept with two TV experts. In a wizard-of-oz study, we test our AR prototype with eight users and evaluate the perception of the four collaboration styles. The AR-enhanced edutainment concept was well-received by the participants, and the coaching collaboration style was perceived as favorable and could possibly be combined with the modeling style.

Recent developments in augmented reality for TV productions encouraged broadcasters to enhance interaction with virtual content for moderators. However, traditional interaction methods are considered distracting and not intuitive. To overcome these issues, we performed a gesture elicitation study with a follow-up evaluation. For this, we considered TV moderators as primary users of the gestures as well as viewers as recipients. The elicited gesture set consists of five gestures for two types of camera shots (long shot and close shot). Findings of the evaluation study indicate that the derived set of gestures requires low physical and concentration effort from moderators. Also, both moderators and viewers found them appropriate to be used in TV with respect to understandability, distraction, likeability, and appropriateness. Using these gestures would allow moderators to control AR content in TV and tell stories in a modern and more expressive way.

Due to the rising popularity of streaming services, television networks are experiencing pressure to keep the attention of the younger audience. Especially in the field of Edutainment, platforms like YouTube or TED are serious competitors and require broadcasters to come up with novel ideas to engage viewers in their program. In this work, we present the augmented reality (AR) SpaceStation application, designed to supplement the viewing of educational videos about the ISS. We evaluated users’ experience during the interaction with the app in a within-subject user study (N = 31) and assessed their workload. During the interaction with the SpaceStation App, participants experienced a higher workload compared to a video-only condition; nonetheless, they considered AR a valuable and enjoyable addition. This paper concludes with a discussion from the perspectives of viewers, content creators, and hosts, and states initial ideas on how to design television programs with AR content, without creating information overload.