# Assessing the Value of Information in an Augmented Reality City Experience
## 2 Background
### Location-Based Information Delivery Through Augmented Reality  
Augmented reality (AR) technologies offer new ways to engage users and deliver information. Such technology creates a virtual layer where digital and physical objects interact through wearable technologies, smartphones, or head-mounted displays. It can add or remove physical objects from view and present alternative content, thus creating an augmented perception of reality or an entirely artificial environment [12; 13]. The use of AR has been limited due to large and inaccessible wearable technology [14]. With technological advances, especially smartphones, and the hype around the 'Pokemon Go' [13] AR-based game in 2016, awareness spread, and AR applications became more available and used by the general public. AR technology has been used in various fields, for example, in medicine (e.g., planning surgery and patient treatment) [15], culture (e.g., visiting museums and art galleries) [16], retail (e.g., enhancing customers' shopping experience) [17], logistics (e.g., assisting in logistics management) [18], and education (e.g., offering 3D interactive visualizations) [19]. The concept of using AR to deliver location-based information is not new, with several mobile applications already utilizing this technology for navigation, offering real-time directions and information about nearby points of interest, Google Maps AR, Maps AR, city walk helper, and Virtlo World Around Me, to name few. Research on AR location-based systems mainly focuses on interface design and development [12; 14; 20; 21]. Such research has explored how different AR map displays affect pedestrian navigation performance and the user experience, methods of presenting information in AR car navigation systems, and factors influencing the adoption of mobile AR applications [21]. Researchers emphasize the importance of adapting these interfaces to individual needs, situations, and abilities [22; 23]. Notably, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment [12; 21], along with ease of understanding and safety throughout the process of reaching a destination [22], influence users' intention to adopt and use these systems. The focus of those studies was on information consumption. They addressed key aspects in the efforts towards understanding of practical implementation of AR in location systems: enhancing safety and user-experience, improving information presentation and comprehension, and adapting to diverse user needs and contexts. While these insights into AR's impact on user experience and adoption have primarily focused on users as consumers of information, we seek to provide a more nuanced understanding of how AR affects information valuation from both perspectives: consumers and producers. The effectiveness of AR can be understood through the lens of media richness theory [6], which has been extended to digital technologies in recent research. Media richness theory posits that the effectiveness of information transmission depends on the medium's capacity to convey complex messages. The ability of AR to overlay digital information onto the physical world represents a particularly rich medium. [PERSON] et al. [24] argue that AR enhances media richness through increased interactivity and vividness, leading to improved experiences. Similarly, [PERSON] et al. [25] further confirmed that AR technologies increase media richness, enhancing user experience through interactivity. In the context of information value, the richness of AR as a medium may influence how users perceive and value the information presented, potentially explaining differences in information evaluation between AR and non-AR contexts [24]. Much of the current literature addresses AR in the context of experience goods from the consumer point of view [26; 27]. AR serves to provide visual information on products, proving to be a more influential tool than the traditional method of product presentation, such as two-dimensional and three-dimensional information.