Design and use of 3D typography for indoor Augmented Reality mobile applications

Abstract: Augmented Reality (AR), a concept where the real word is being enhanced with computer generated objects and text, has evolved and become a popular tool to communicate information through. Research on how the technique can be optimized regarding the technical aspects has been made, but not regarding how typography in three dimensions should be designed and used in AR applications. Therefore this master’s thesis investigates three different design attributes of typography in three dimensions. The three attributes are: typeface style, color, and weight including depth, and how they affect the visibility of the text in an indoor AR environment. A user study was conducted, both with regular users but also with users that were considered experts in the field of typography and design, to investigate differences of the visibility regarding the typography’s design attributes. The result shows noteworthy differences between two pairs of AR simulations containing different typography among the regular users. This along with a slight favoritism of bright colored text against dark colored text, even though no notable different could be seen regarding color alone. Discussions regarding the design attributes of the typography affect the legibility of the text, and what could have been done differently to achieve an even more conclusive result. To summarize this thesis, the objective resulted in design guidelines regarding typography for indoor mobile AR applications.