Improving Citizens’ Trust in Public Administrators via AR-Based Co-located Social Interactions

Description

Public trust in government has declined significantly over the past decades across the globe. One factor that contributes to this phenomenon is the lack of communication and understanding between citizens and public administrators, leading to the widening gap between public expectations and perceived governmental performance. Citizens and government officials oftentimes do not have a common ground, consensus, or presumption to ease their communication, leading to misunderstandings and conflicts. To explore the potential and feasibility of leveraging AR to bridge the communication gaps between citizens and public administrators, this project aims to design and develop an AR-based interactive system which supports immersive and engaging citizen-public administrator communication. Formative studies will be conducted to understand different stakeholders’ needs and their preferences for co-located social interactions. Subsequently, we will design and develop AR-based co-located interactive systems, and evaluate the systems from the perspective of real users to gain more insights into improving public trust with AR.