  The collaboration in co-located shared environments has sparked an increased
interest in immersive technologies, including Augmented Reality (AR). Since
research in this field has primarily focused on individual user experiences in
AR, the collaborative aspects within shared AR spaces remain less explored, and
fewer studies can provide guidelines for designing this type of experience.
This article investigates how the user experience in a collaborative shared AR
space is affected by divergent perceptions of virtual objects and the effects
of positional synchrony and avatars. For this purpose, we developed an AR app
and used two distinct experimental conditions to study the influencing factors.
Forty-eight participants, organized into 24 pairs, participated in the
experiment and jointly interacted with shared virtual objects. Results indicate
that divergent perceptions of virtual objects did not directly influence
communication and collaboration dynamics. Conversely, positional synchrony
emerged as a critical factor, significantly enhancing the quality of the
collaborative experience. On the contrary, while not negligible, avatars played
a relatively less pronounced role in influencing these dynamics. The findings
can potentially offer valuable practical insights, guiding the development of
future collaborative AR/VR environments.
