Lean In or Lean Back? Aspects on Interactivity & Mediation in Handheld Augmented Reality in the Museum

With the idea to design augmented reality experiences that attract and inform, and which are also seamlessly incorporated into interactive museum narratives, this paper explores finding the appropriate balance between attraction, interactivity and information mediation from the user's point of view. Within the scope of research project CHESS, we've implemented techniques that fuse interaction and mediation to enrich visits to cultural institutions by visual means and AR specific interactions. While it is AR's wow-effect that attracts, our findings show that users far too often struggle to cope with the system and interactivity instead of focusing on the information presentation in AR. We discuss our results of finding the right balance between interactive (lean-in) and non-interactive (lean-back) presentation and interaction techniques in AR.