Colour Perception on Optical-See-Through Displays for Ubiquitous Visualization Applications

Optical-see-through (OST) displays afford users the ability to view information in augmented reality anywhere and anytime. However, the colours of the rendered content on OST displays, often used to encode information, may conflict with the current environment the user is situated in, leading to usability and perceptual challenges. In this Ph.D. thesis, I propose investigating how human perception of colours rendered on OST displays varies based on visual components of the user’s environment (colour, complexity, and lighting) to inform the design of ubiquitous visualization applications. Specifically, my work will study the effects of colour blending and contrast effects on interpretation performance, and model colour just-noticeable differences through psychophysical experiments. The resulting models will be used to design an automatic colour-adaptation approach for OST displays which preserves colour encodings and achieves adequate interpretability across dynamic viewing conditions. Taken together, my work will inform on perceptual challenges, and on the design of ubiquitous visualizations and colour encodings on OST displays.