Enhancing Winter Sport Activities: improving the visual perception and spatial awareness of downhill winter athletes with augmented reality headset displays - Masters of Design Thesis Study

Strong spatial-awareness and visual perception skills can improve an athlete’s performance, enhance training routines and reduce the potential for injury due to physical error. This research study looks to investigate the barriers and design requirements for developing an augmented reality headset display for downhill winter athletes, which may improve visual perception, spatial-awareness and reduce injury. This research used a variety of human-centred-design methods to collect the participant data, including surveys, experience-simulation-testing, user-response-analysis, and statistical analysis.

During the study, 34 participants with previous experience skiing, or snowboarding at different skill-levels, wore an augmented reality headset and evaluated the visual perception of an icon, while watching a simulation video and standing on a slope changing platform to simulate a downhill skiing experience. The study revealed that various levels of downhill winter athletes may benefit differently from access to athletic data during a physical activity, and indicated that some expert level athletes can train to strengthen their spatial-awareness abilities. The results generated visual design recommendations, including icon colours, locations within the field-of-view, and alert methods which could be utilized to optimize the usability of a headset display.

Timeline: 12 months

Skills: Graphic Design, Design Research, Conceptual Development, Prototyping, User Testing, Fabrication, Solidworks, Adobe Illustrator, Statistical Analysis