Navigating spaces is an embodied experience. Examples can vary from rescue workers trying to save people from natural disasters; a tourist finding their way to the nearest coffee shop, or a gamer solving a maze. Virtual reality allows these experiences to be simulated in a controlled virtual environment. However, virtual reality users remain anchored in the real world and the conventions by which the virtual environment is deployed influence user performance. There is currently a need to evaluate the degree of influence imposed by extrinsic factors and virtual reality hardware on its users. Traditionally, virtual reality experiences have been deployed using Head-Mounted Displays with powerful computers rendering the graphical content of the virtual environment; however, user input has been facilitated using an array of human interface devices including Keyboards, Mice, Trackballs, Touchscreens, Joysticks, Gamepads, Motion detecting cameras and Webcams. Some of these HIDs have also been introduced for non-immersive video games and general computing. Due to this fact, a subset of virtual reality users has greater familiarity than others in using these HIDs. Virtual reality experiences that utilize gamepads (controllers) to navigate virtual environments may introduce a bias towards usability among virtual reality users previously exposed to video-gaming. This article presents an evaluative user study conducted using our ubiquitous virtual reality framework with general audiences. Among our findings, we reveal a usability bias among virtual reality users who are predominantly video gamers. Beyond this, we found a statistical difference in user behavior between untethered immersive virtual reality experiences compared to untethered non-immersive virtual reality experiences.
In 1998, proposed a formalized methodology and framework @cite_10 for the evaluation of travel techniques in immersive VEs. The basic construct of their framework was a taxonomy of travel techniques. Their experimental analysis revealed the need to gather more information about user analytics inside VEs. In a second study, studied the effects of various travel techniques on the spatial orientation @cite_0 of users inside immersive VR environments. At the same time, introduced a formal study comparing HMDs and desktop displays @cite_12 . The objective of this study was to perform a baseline investigation that compared the two different types of displays. They found that participants using the HMD navigated the virtual buildings significantly more quickly, and developed a significantly accurate sense of relative straight-line distance. Behavioral analyses showed that participants took advantage of the natural, head-tracked interface provided by the HMD in ways that include looking around'' more often while traveling through the VE and spending less time being stationary while choosing a direction in which to travel.
@cite_0 @cite_10 @cite_12
2144558640 2073427859 2128832650
An experiment is presented comparing the effects of various virtual travel techniques in an immersive virtual environment (VE) on the spatial orientation of users. The experiment was designed and implemented in the context of a formal framework for the design and evaluation of VE travel techniques. Subjects traveled through virtual corridors, noting the location of objects along the way, and were asked to point in the direction of one of these objects when the end of the corridor was reached. Results indicate that virtual travel techniques, in which users do not physically translate their bodies, can allow the maintenance of a user's spatial orientation as measured by a pointing task. The experiment also replicates an earlier result, showing that path dimension significantly affects user performance. Finally, the strategies used by subjects to perform the task were shown to be significant, indicating that performance depends not only on the technique, environment, and task, but also on the sophistication of the user. We present a framework for the analysis and evaluation oftravel, or viewpoint motion control, techniques for use in immersive virtual environments (VEs). In previous work, we presented a taxonomy of travel techniques and a set of experiments mapping parts of the taxonomy to various performance metrics. Since these initial experiments, we have expanded the framework to allow evaluation of not only the effects of different travel techniques, but also the effects of many outside factors simultaneously. Combining this expanded framework with the measurement of multiple response variables epitomises the philosophy oftestbed evaluation. This experimental philosophy leads to a deeper understanding of the interaction and the technique(s) in question, as well as to broadly generalisable results. We also present an example experiment within this expanded framework, which evaluates the user's ability to gather information while travelling through a virtual environment. Results indicate that, of the variables tested, the complexity of the environment is by far the most important factor. Participants used a helmet-mounted display (HMD) and a desk-top (monitor) display to learn the layouts of two large-scale virtual environments (VEs) through repeated, direct navigational experience. Both VEs were “virtual buildings” containing more than seventy rooms. Participants using the HMD navigated the buildings significantly more quickly and developed a significantly more accurate sense of relative straight-line distance. There was no significant difference between the two types of display in terms of the distance that participants traveled or the mean accuracy of their direction estimates. Behavioral analyses showed that participants took advantage of the natural, head-tracked interface provided by the HMD in ways that included “looking around” more often while traveling through the VEs, and spending less time stationary in the VEs while choosing a direction in which to travel.