A Conceptual Model and Taxonomy for Collaborative Augmented Reality.

To support the nuances of collaborative work, many researchers have been exploring the field of Augmented Reality (AR),aiming to assist in co-located or remote scenarios. Solutions using AR allow taking advantage from seamless integration of virtualobjects and real-world objects, thus providing collaborators with a shared understanding or common ground environment. However,most of the research efforts, so far, have been devoted to experiment with technology and mature methods to support its design anddevelopment. Therefore, it is now time to understand were do we stand and how well can we address collaborative work with AR, tobetter characterize and evaluate the collaboration process. In this paper, we perform an analysis of the different dimensions that shouldbe taken into account when analysing the contributions of AR to the collaborative work effort. Then, we bring these dimensions forwardinto a conceptual framework and propose an extended human-centered taxonomy for the categorization of the main features of Collaborative AR. Our goal is to foster harmonization of perspectives for the field, which may help create a common ground forsystematization and discussion. We hope to influence and improve how research in this field is reported by providing a structured list ofthe defining characteristics. Finally, some examples of the use of the taxonomy are presented to show how it can serve to gatherinformation for characterizing AR-supported collaborative work, and illustrate its potential as the grounds to elicit further.