With the recent 4th industrial revolution and advances in technology, the scope of VR utilization is expanding beyond just games into diverse fields like healthcare and education. With the development of these virtual technologies, global ICT companie...
With the recent 4th industrial revolution and advances in technology, the scope of VR utilization is expanding beyond just games into diverse fields like healthcare and education. With the development of these virtual technologies, global ICT companies like Apple have confirmed the launch of VR and AR technologies through Vision Pro, expecting the popularization of virtual reality to accelerate even faster. As the virtual reality market expands, there is a need to pay attention to user interfaces for interaction within virtual reality. Thus, this study focuses on the pointer interface representing the user's actions within virtual reality, aiming to determine whether different types of visual cues of the pointer lead to differences in user experience during the virtual reality information search process.
This study was conducted as follows: First, through literature review, virtual reality was examined and previous studies on user experience in virtual reality were reviewed. Through the precedent studies, interactivity, usability and information were identified as major factors of user experience in virtual reality.
Also, it was discovered that while many technical studies have been conducted on the interaction between the virtual reality system and the user, there is a lack of visual studies on the virtual reality interface that users directly see and interact with. Therefore, after examining theories on affordance that guides user behavior and visual cues, this study defined the pointer, a user interface that increases interaction with users in virtual reality.
Secondly, in order to examine the differences in user experience according to the types of visual cues of the pointer in virtual reality, hypotheses and experiments were designed to conduct empirical research. The types of pointers are largely divided into those with no visual cues and those with visual cues. The types with visual cues are further categorized into the “information-embedded pointer” type that contains information within the pointer, and the “transforming pointer” type that changes form according to user actions. Experiment materials were produced accordingly. A total of 6 video experiment materials were produced by presenting 3 types of pointers according to differences in the sense of distance during the virtual reality information search process, and the experiment participants watched them wearing VR HMD devices. The experiment was conducted for 13 days from October 24, 2023 to November 5, 2023. A total of 60 experiment participants took part in the experiment offline. After watching the videos, the participants carried out a post-questionnaire evaluation consisting of a 5-point Likert scale, and additionally conducted 1:1 in-depth interviews for deriving insights.
The results analysis was conducted using one-way ANOVA, and the research findings are as follows:
First, it was found that users experience richer when the pointer inside virtual reality has a familiar form or when the changes in the pointer according to the user's input actions are distinct. Users prefer pointers with visual cues rather than those without, but it was identified that for the provided visual cues to be effective in usability and information, they need to be recognizable without additional learning. Also, through in-depth interviews, it was discovered that pointers that transform in shape according to user actions are evaluated especially positively when the transformations resemble actual hand shapes of users in actions like scrolling and dragging extending horizontally and vertically. This implies that even simple pointer forms can increase the virtual reality information transfer effect when they contain the user's objectives or actions inherently.
Secondly, it was discovered that different visual cues need to be provided according to the sense of distance between the user and screen in virtual reality. For users in closer environments, both the “information-embedded pointer” type and “transforming pointer” type garnered positive reactions, but in farther environments, the “information-embedded pointer” type showed lower average outcome values than the “transforming pointer” type in interactivity, usability, and information. Through these results and additional in-depth interviews, it was found that the farther the distance, noticeable changes are more effective for users in recognizing information, while adding small elements can rather make it difficult to properly grasp the meaning.
This study carried out suggestions for interfaces to improve user experience in virtual reality through empirical research, and discovered that the presence of visual cues embedded in pointers during the virtual reality user information search process leads to differences in user experience, and that depending on the
situation and user characteristics, different types of visual cues need to be provided. It is meaningful in that the study identified the necessity of new pointer interfaces in virtual reality for more accurate information acquisition and transfer, and proposed them. It is hoped that the results of this study can be utilized as
basic data for future research on user interfaces in virtual reality. In addition, based on this, follow-up studies need to research what forms of visual methods provided according to output interaction situations are more effective for the user experience.