Location-based games (LBGs) merge digital play with physical environments, creating hybrid spaces that require players to navigate complex trust dynamics. Despite their global popularity, LBGs introduce unique challenges around fairness, safety, and privacy, spanning interactions among players, game systems, local communities, and non-players in shared public spaces. To examine how trust is perceived, built, and sustained in these environments, we conducted in-depth interviews with 26 players of four major LBGs: Pokémon GO, Monster Hunter Now, Ingress, and Pikmin Bloom. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we identified dynamics of trust across four trustor–trustee relationships: player–system, player–player, player–community, and player–non-player in five key aspects: fair play, location privacy, online vetting, hybrid interaction, and public play. Drawing on our findings, we propose a trust model for analyzing and designing trust in LBGs as hybrid spaces, and we outline design implications aimed at strengthening trust building and sustaining trustworthy interactions across the LBG ecology.

Tasks in augmented reality (AR), such as 3D interaction and instructional comprehension, are often designed for users with uniform sensory abilities. Such an approach, however, can overlook the more nuanced needs of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) users who might have reduced auditory perception. To better understand these challenges, our study utilized the single-player AR game Angry Birds AR as a probe to explore how 11 DHH participants and 15 hearing participants experienced AR interactions. Our findings highlight that DHH users prefer interaction based on context, effective haptic cues, audio cue substitutes, and clear instructional design. We, therefore, propose the following design recommendations to enhance the accessibility of AR for DHH users. This includes customizable UI options, modular feedback systems, and virtual avatars for sign language instructions.

Shared Augmented Reality (Shared AR) is an emerging technology that enables multiple users to interact synchronously within a collocated AR environment. Yet, there is limited research on the group interactions and dynamics in Shared AR, particularly in the context of gaming. To address this gap, we investigate Shared AR group interactions using a phone-based Shared AR mobile game called Urban Legends . Through in situ observations, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews with 22 participants, we examine how users collaborate and communicate within the game. Our findings reveal that while verbal communication predominates, non-verbal cues are often overlooked by collocated participants, and users initially struggle to recognize the expansive virtual space and the need for physical movement. Over time, users adapt to the hybrid environment, demonstrating increasing spatial awareness and more dynamic collaboration. Based on these insights, we present a suite of design recommendations for enhancing spatial awareness, supporting multi-modal communication, and fostering engaging group dynamics in future Shared AR applications.

Sensory-intensive and attention-demanding tasks like visual scanning, interacting with 3D objects, comprehending and following instructions, etc. are becoming more common in Augmented Reality (AR) environments as the technology expands through diverse fields. It is important to understand how these types of tasks are experienced by Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people, especially if those tasks involve any sound or compete with attention shifts (e.g., observing someone signing) in both real and virtual environments. Our current research specifically aims to identify the challenges that DHH users encounter when engaging in visual scanning in an AR environment. Using Angry Birds AR as a probe in our research, 11 DHH participants, with varying hearing abilities played seven rounds of the game, followed by a short structured interview and a long semi-structured interview. Our findings revealed that subtle audio cues and excessive visual indicators impacted participants’ performances negatively. Additionally, they positioned themselves strategically for maximum spatial awareness but faced challenges with AR visual cues due to the lighting conditions in the real environment. We further suggested design implications such as customizable, user-friendly haptic and textual feedback, and intelligent spatially aware mechanisms for AR.

Co-located collaborative shared augmented reality (CS-AR) environments have gained considerable research attention, mainly focusing on design, implementation, accuracy, and usability. Yet, a gap persists in our understanding regarding the accessibility and inclusivity of such environments for diverse user groups, such as deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people. To investigate this domain, we used Urban Legends, a multiplayer game in a co-located CS-AR setting. We conducted a user study followed by one-on-one interviews with 17 DHH participants. Our findings revealed the usage of multimodal communication (verbal and non-verbal) before and during the game, impacting the amount of collaboration among participants and how their coordination with AR components, their surroundings, and other participants improved throughout the rounds. We utilize our data to propose design enhancements, including onscreen visuals and speech-to-text transcription, centered on participant perspectives and our analysis.

One of the most recent developments in augmented reality (AR) technology is co-located collaborative multiplayer AR environments, yet little research has been done to determine how communication and collaboration function in these settings. There is a gap in our understanding of whether these environments are currently accessible for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) people. Although technical aspects, such as design, implementation, accuracy, etc., of the technologies and users’ behavior with assistive AR technologies, have been covered in plenty of prior literature, very few studies have paid attention to how DHH people communicate and collaborate in co-located collaborative AR environments. As an initial step toward addressing the gap in current literature, our ongoing research focuses on how DHH people communicate and collaborate in a co-located collaborative multiplayer AR environment. As part of our study, we conducted gameplay experiments and one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 17 DHH participants. In this piece of work, among the prominent themes that stood out in our findings, we further discuss communication and collaboration, specifically multi-modal communication (verbal and non-verbal) among users and how multi-modal communication affected their collaboration in the environment.