Comfortable Design of Task-Related Information Displayed Using Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Display

Optical see-through head-mounted displays (OSDs) enable users to view digital images overlaid on the real world. Their most prospective application is as media that display instruction manuals in industrial fields. This study elucidates requirements for comfortable design depending on the complexity of workers’ sight, particularly focusing on OSDs’ perfect see-through feature. Our goal is to provide design guidelines for task-related information displayed using OSDs. Based on experimental results, requirements for the comfortable design of elements of the task-related information provided by OSDs are summarized. We suggest the content should be designed when OSDs are put to practical use. Complete examination revealed that users who repeatedly shifted their gaze from the OSD to the real object felt more comfortable because their eyes were subjected to lesser variation in brightness. Accordingly, we suggest that design elements of the information items should be designed to control the brightness difference between the information displayed on OSDs and real sight.