Ruddle, R.A. and Lessels, S. (2009) The benefits of using a walking interface to navigate virtual environments. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 16 (1). 5:1-5:18. ISSN 1073-0516
Abstract
Navigation is the most common interactive task performed in three-dimensional virtual environments (VEs), but it is also a task that users often find difficult. We investigated how body-based information about the translational and rotational components of movement helped participants to perform a navigational search task (finding targets hidden inside boxes in a room-sized space). When participants physically walked around the VE while viewing it on a head-mounted display (HMD), they then performed 90% of trials perfectly, comparable to participants who had performed an equivalent task in the real world during a previous study. By contrast, participants performed less than 50% of trials perfectly if they used a tethered HMD (move by physically turning but pressing a button to translate) or a desktop display (no body-based information). This is the most complex navigational task in which a real-world level of performance has been achieved in a VE. Behavioral data indicates that both translational and rotational body-based information are required to accurately update one's position during navigation, and participants who walked tended to avoid obstacles, even though collision detection was not implemented and feedback not provided. A walking interface would bring immediate benefits to a number of VE applications.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2009 Association for Computing Machinery. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 16 (1). 5:1-5:18. |
Keywords: | virtual reality, navigation, locomotion, visual fidelity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Computing (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Miss Jamie Grant |
Date Deposited: | 21 May 2009 15:49 |
Last Modified: | 08 Feb 2017 13:53 |
Published Version: | http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1502800.1502805 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Association for Computing Machinery |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1145/1502800.1502805 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:8632 |