Abstract
The idea of augmenting human capabilities has been a topic in Human-Computer Interaction for several decades. Examples range from physical body aids such as wearable mechanical arms and human microchip implants to sensory aids such as tactile displays or the use of wearable technologies such as head-worn displays to augment human vision. Specifically, vision augmentations have seen a rise in popularity, which in part can be explained by the recent advancements in related technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) with which many approaches in vision augmentation share hardware components. So far, techniques from vision augmentation have been extensively explored for individuals with impairments and low vision, such as presbyopia glasses for the elderly, myopia glasses for those with nearsightedness, and colour vision deficiency glasses for those with colour blindness. In contrast, visual aid devices for the unimpaired have received less attention. This thesis explores this direction with a specific focus on visual discomfort or visual noise. As a first step, this thesis reviews the literature on vision augmentations, and besides giving a general overview, we show that visual noise and visual discomfort have only seen very little recognition in the literature, which is surprising given that acoustic noise is already well-understood and managed by popular noise-cancellation headphones. In the second step, we employ a user-centred approach to explore for the first time the concept of visual discomfort and visual noise by identifying what causes or contributes to the perception of visual discomfort. Besides the analysis of the results we also developed first prototypes for visual noise cancellation and report back on a first study. Finally, we explore LCD light attenuation as an affordable and less-power-demanding alternative to traditional AR glasses to modulate the visual perception of the environment with applications including visual noise cancellation and beyond. We finish our exploration with a general discussion and outlook to future opportunities.