An increasing number of studies employ virtual reality (VR) to evaluate interactions between autonomous vehicles (AVs) and pedestrians. VR simulators are valued for their cost-effectiveness, flexibility in developing various traffic scenarios, safe conduct of user studies, and acceptable ecological validity. Reviewing the literature between 2010 and 2020, we found 31 empirical studies using VR as a testing apparatus for both implicit and explicit communication. By performing a systematic analysis, we identified current coverage of critical use cases, obtained a comprehensive account of factors influencing pedestrian behavior in simulated traffic scenarios, and assessed evaluation measures. Based on the findings, we present a set of recommendations for implementing VR pedestrian simulators and propose directions for future research.

Immersive virtual reality (iVR) has gained considerable attention recently with increasing affordability and accessibility of the hardware. iVR applications for older adults present tremendous potential for diverse interventions and innovations. The iVR literature, however, provides a limited understanding of guiding design considerations and evaluations pertaining to user experience (UX). To address this gap, we present a state-of-the-art scoping review of literature on iVR applications developed for older adults over 65 years. We performed a search in ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and PubMed (1 January 2010–15 December 2019) and found 36 out of 3874 papers met the inclusion criteria. We identified 10 distinct sets of design considerations that guided target users and physical configuration, hardware use, and software design. Most studies carried episodic UX where only 2 captured anticipated UX and 7 measured longitudinal experiences. We discuss the interplay between our findings and future directions to design effective, safe, and engaging iVR applications for older adults.

Wearable augmented reality (AR) offers new ways for supporting the interaction between autonomous vehicles (AVs) and pedestrians due to its ability to integrate timely and contextually relevant data into the user's field of view. This article presents novel wearable AR concepts that assist crossing pedestrians in multi-vehicle scenarios where several AVs frequent the road from both directions. Three concepts with different communication approaches for signaling responses from multiple AVs to a crossing request, as well as a conventional pedestrian push button, were simulated and tested within a virtual reality environment. The results showed that wearable AR is a promising way to reduce crossing pedestrians' cognitive load when the design offers both individual AV responses and a clear signal to cross. The willingness of pedestrians to adopt a wearable AR solution, however, is subject to different factors, including costs, data privacy, technical defects, liability risks, maintenance duties, and form factors. We further found that all participants favored sending a crossing request to AVs rather than waiting for the vehicles to detect their intentions—pointing to an important gap and opportunity in the current AV-pedestrian interaction literature.

Wearable Augmented Reality (AR) has attracted considerable attention in recent years, as evidenced by the growing number of research publications and industry investments. With swift advancements and a multitude of interdisciplinary research areas within wearable AR, a comprehensive review is crucial for integrating the current state of the field. In this paper, we present a review of 389 research papers on wearable AR, published between 2018 and 2022 in three major venues: ISMAR, TVCG, and CHI. Drawing inspiration from previous works by Zhou et al. and Kim et al., which summarized AR research at ISMAR over the past two decades (1998–2017), we categorize the papers into different topics and identify prevailing trends. One notable finding is that wearable AR research is increasingly geared towards enabling broader consumer adoption. From our analysis, we highlight key observations related to potential future research areas essential for capitalizing on this trend and achieving widespread adoption. These include addressing challenges in Display, Tracking, Interaction, and Applications, and exploring emerging frontiers in Ethics, Accessibility, Avatar and Embodiment, and Intelligent Virtual Agents.

The deployment of autonomous delivery robots in urban environments presents unique challenges in navigating complex traffic conditions and interacting with diverse road and sidewalk users. Effective communication between robots and road and sidewalk users is crucial to address these challenges. This study investigates real-world encounter scenarios where delivery robots and road and sidewalk users interact, seeking to understand the essential role of communication in ensuring seamless encounters. Following an online ethnography approach, we collected 117 user-generated videos from TikTok and their associated 2,067 comments. Our systematic analysis revealed several design opportunities to augment communication between delivery robots and road and sidewalk users, which include facilitating multi-party path negotiation, managing unexpected robot behaviour via transparency information, and expressing robot limitations to request human assistance. Moreover, the triangulation of video and comments analysis provides a set of design considerations to realise these opportunities. The findings contribute to understanding the operational context of delivery robots and offer insights for designing interactions with road and sidewalk users, facilitating their integration into urban spaces.

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to fundamentally change how people engage with increasingly interactive urban environments. However, many challenges exist in designing and evaluating these new urban AR experiences, such as technical constraints and safety concerns associated with outdoor AR. We contribute to this domain by assessing the use of virtual reality (VR) for simulating wearable urban AR experiences, allowing participants to interact with future AR interfaces in a realistic, safe and controlled setting. This paper describes two wearable urban AR applications (pedestrian navigation and autonomous mobility) simulated in VR. Based on a thematic analysis of interview data collected across the two studies, we find that the VR simulation successfully elicited feedback on the functional benefits of AR concepts and the potential impact of urban contextual factors, such as safety concerns, attentional capacity, and social considerations. At the same time, we highlight the limitations of this approach in terms of assessing the AR interface’s visual quality and providing exhaustive contextual information. The paper concludes with recommendations for simulating wearable urban AR experiences in VR.