Near-Field Augmented Reality Design and Interaction: A Scoping Review

Augmented Reality (AR), which overlays digital content within the user’s view, is gaining traction across domains such as education, healthcare, manufacturing, and entertainment. Hardware constraints of commercially available HMDs are well acknowledged but little work addresses what design or interactions techniques developers can employ or build into experiences to work around these limitations. We conduct a scoping literature review which aims to map the current landscape of design principles and interaction techniques employed in near-field AR environments. We searched for literature published between 2016 and 2025 across major databases including ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore. Studies were included if they explicitly employed design or interaction techniques with a commercially available HMD for near-field AR experiences. 780 articles were returned by the search but just 7 articles met the inclusion criteria. Our review identifies key themes around how existing techniques are employed, the two competing goals of AR experiences, and we highlight the importance of embodiment in interaction efficacy. We present directions for future research based on and justified by our review. The findings offer a comprehensive overview for researchers, designers, and developers aiming to create more intuitive, effective, and context-aware near-field AR experiences. This review also provides a foundation for future research by outlining under explored areas and recommending research directions for near-field AR interaction design.