Spatial reference frame based user interface design in the virtual reality game design (P)

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) creates a virtual environment for learning and education as its strong sense of presence and real-time interactivity. Much research focus on the issues of VR hardware and platform, however, little research involve the design of user interface in VR systems. Different from other interface, a VR interface is designed as a floating menu that virtually presented in the front of users. This paper aims to investigate the influence of user experience from the various spatial reference frames and how three spatial reference frames based user interface and the sense of presence impact user performance in the virtual environment. We developed a VR game for fire safety training and evaluated three types of VR user interface commonly used in VR systems. Sixty participants were involved in this evaluation based on the task completion times, completion rates and error rates. Our results show that the spatial reference frames can be critical important to the user experience when users interact with the game in the virtual environment. We found that the user interface of different spatial reference frames also has significant difference in the sense of presence and user performance of virtual environment.