New workers or new tasks: How do augmented reality, experience, and task switching affect worker performance in naval maintenance operations

Background/Rationale: Rapid yet accurate maintenance is essential for cost-efficient naval operations. Augmented reality (AR) head-mounted displays promise faster, more intuitive task guidance, but empirical evidence on their efficacy across worker experience levels and task types remains limited.

Questions/Purpose: This study examined how AR guidance influences maintenance performance relative to traditional desktop instructions, investigating its effects on task completion time across workers with different experience levels and various task characteristics.

Methods: A realistic laboratory experiment was conducted with 34 professional naval maintenance workers completing 3128 maintenance subtasks. Each participant performed tasks using both traditional desktop-based instructions and AR guidance. The study compared performance outcomes between these two instruction methods.

Results: AR guidance was associated with lower task completion times compared to desktop instructions, with particularly pronounced effects for inexperienced workers and when switching between different task types. AR usage is related to lower perceived task difficulty for inexperienced workers but shows no significant difference in perceived difficulty for experienced workers.

Conclusions and Applications: AR guidance can reduce maintenance task completion times, especially benefiting inexperienced personnel during task transitions. The technology appears suitable for introducing inexperienced workers to tasks when AR guidance remains available for future work. However, when independent and flexible performance is expected without technological support, more thorough onboarding processes using traditional written instructions should be preferred over the rapid familiarization that AR facilitates.