Background: A main goal in the advancing digitalization is to offer employees support in coping with large amounts of information and to process it context-sensitively and according to their needs. Augmented reality (AR) as an emerging technology has great potential in this regard.
Objectives: The aim of this work is to generally highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various technologies and in particular to point out the potential of AR-based technologies.
Method: A comparison of different technologies by assessing various technology characteristics and the level of digital stress caused by the use of these technologies was conducted based on survey data.
Results: The results of the conducted study show that technologies such as stationary PC, laptop or smartphone are assessed better in terms of various technology characteristics than AR. Furthermore, digitally induced stress is reported when using AR.
Conclusion: AR as a mobile digital assistance system still seems to fall short of its potential for human-centered work design. One reason for this may be the low degree of popularity of AR and the not fully developed technological maturity.
Keywords: Virtual and augmented reality; context-sensitive provision of information; digital stress; work assistance systems.