Navigation Interfaces And Simulation Experience In Virtual Reality Biking

With development of virtual reality and its navigation technology,more and more users are getting exposure to these new technologies.But relative studies have shown that most users can have troubles in navigating in virtual reality.In addition,users may feel dizzy and nauseous due to the perception differences between the feedbacks of virtual riding and those of riding in the real world,which has a serious impact on the user experience.However,the current studies on navigation in virtual reality are still scarce.For this reason,taking immersive virtual riding as the study subject,I have conducted a study on the navigational interfaces and feedbacks of virtual riding.First of all,this project has researched the user experience of three navigational interfaces including the map,the directional icons and the pathfinder and the elements involve efficiency,satisfaction,learnability,usability,environmental perception and presence.The experimental subjects need to ride to the terminal along the path of the virtual environment.Their achievement time,times of collision and subjective scales are recorded in order to quantify the elements of user experience.The result of the project suggests that the directional icons can raise the efficiency of virtual riding,but not in a statistically significant way.However,it should be noted that the directional icons can reduce the environmental perception in virtual reality significantly.For the pathfinder,it contributes to enhancing the usability and the learnability when the users use it to navigate.For the map,there is little difference compared with the experience without any navigational interface.In the next place,the project has analyzed the riding positions in the real world and three patterns of feedbacks suitable for virtual riding are put forward,including the pattern based on active rolls(IR Mode),the pattern based on angles of turns(PR Mode)and the pattern without feedback(NR Mode).Then I have measured the user experience of these three patterns,and the measurement involves five elements,dizziness,satisfaction,learnability,usability and immersion.The result shows that IR Mode is not suitable for virtual riding for which users roll their bodies unconsciously but not in an active way.Compared with NR Mode,PR Mode can not only reduce dizziness but also improve presence,learnability and usability of the riding system.It can be concluded that PR Mode can bring good experience of feedbacks in virtual riding.At last,a game prototype has been designed and developed based on the research conclusion of the navigational interfaces and the patterns of the feedbacks,and it has also been validated by the usability testing.