Was I There?

What Are Others Looking at? Exploring 360° Videos on HMDs with Visual Cues about Other Viewers

“…However, we identified two primary negative aspects. First, our study supports the existing notion that there is a need to guide viewers in situations where they can choose their own viewpoint [1,32,35,39], as our participants also reported the fear of missing out (FOMO), that is, missing something interesting due to looking at something else at the time. Second, participants stated being generally less engaged, by reporting feelings of being lonely or lost, or having difficulty deciding which parts of the environments to explore.…”

“…Participants seemingly enjoyed the experience and immersed themselves when watching the 360 • videos, which is in line with existing research [3,7,17,21,24,35]. In standard viewing of 360 • content (without indicators), a major positive aspect as reported by the participants is that it truly allows freedom to explore as one pleases, without distractions or pressure.…”

“…(P4, Female/47). The second negative trait was that without any guidance it is easy to miss things (10), as also identified by previous work [1,32,35,39].…”

“…Understandably, in filmmaking (and storytelling) it is imperative that viewers are looking in the right direction during key parts of the story. Prior research has also found that viewers may experience fear of missing out (FOMO) when presented with the freedom to choose their own viewpoint [1,3,32,35,39], which is another argument for providing guidance to viewers.…”

“…These videos are often viewed using a head-mounted display (HMD), which enables looking around naturally by turning one's head. This form of viewing can provide an immersive and enjoyable experience, and lead to a high sense of presence [1,3,7,17,21,24,35,36]. Current research commonly identifies the need to guide 360 • video viewers, as enabling viewers to choose their own viewpoint may result in them feeling lost or missing things [8,11,23,26,27,32,35,39].…”