Rethinking Privacy Indicators in Extended Reality

Topics: Bystander privacy, privacy indicators, situational impairment, inclusive design

Abstract

Conventional XR privacy indicators, such as small recording LEDs, assume that nearby bystanders are attentive and able to notice visual cues. This project introduces the concept of situationally impaired bystanders—people who may be distracted, visually limited by the situation, or otherwise unable to perceive a conventional indicator. Four participatory focus groups with eight participants generated candidate designs, which were consolidated into five indicators spanning visual, auditory, haptic, proximity-, gaze-, and activity-triggered cues. A scenario-based evaluation with seven additional participants found that visual-only indicators were often judged less useful in impairment scenarios, while adaptable multimodal indicators were preferred in privacy-sensitive contexts.

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Citation

@inproceedings{bukhari2025rethinking,
  title     = {Rethinking Privacy Indicators in Extended Reality: Multimodal Design for Situationally Impaired Bystanders},
  author    = {Bukhari, Syed Ibrahim Mustafa Shah and Sajid, Maha and Ji, Bo and David-John, Brendan},
  booktitle = {2025 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct)},
  pages     = {265--272},
  year      = {2025},
  doi       = {10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct68609.2025.00059}
}