SimpleAR: Augmented Reality high-level content design framework using visual programming

This research work proposes a new augmented reality high-level content design framework, this is, a tool to create augmented reality applications aimed at staff with basic or no programming knowledge. The proposed framework summarizes the experience gathered from a systematic mapping study carried out on similar frameworks. Our proposal has a flexible approach regarding its ability to be adapted to any augmented reality programming framework. We demonstrate its viability with an implementation of our framework with Vuforia for the creation of marker-based augmented reality applications. The results of usability tests based on ISO 9241-11 show that our proposal is effective because all users were able to complete all tasks, it is efficient because users were able to create augmented reality applications in less than 5 minutes and it satisfies the user by qualifying as “Highly acceptable” according to the average score of the System Usability Scale questionnaire.