SilverCycling: Exploring the Impact of Bike-Based Locomotion on Spatial Orientation for Older Adults in VR

TL;DR

This study investigates how bike-based VR locomotion, specifically SilverCycling, improves spatial orientation for older adults, showing it may outperform traditional joystick controls and enhance VR accessibility for aging users.

Contribution

The paper introduces SilverCycling, a novel bike-based VR locomotion system, and demonstrates its effectiveness in improving spatial orientation for older adults through a user study.

Findings

SilverCycling significantly enhances spatial orientation in older adults.

Older adults report better user experience with SilverCycling compared to joystick.

Key factors influencing spatial orientation are identified and used for design recommendations.

Abstract

Spatial orientation is essential for people to effectively navigate and interact with the environment in everyday life. With age-related cognitive decline, providing VR locomotion techniques with better spatial orientation performance for older adults becomes important. Such advancements not only make VR more accessible to older adults but also enable them to reap the potential health benefits of VR technology. Natural motion-based locomotion has been shown to be effective in enhancing younger users' performance in VR navigation tasks that require spatial orientation. However, there is a lack of understanding regarding the impact of natural motion-based locomotion on spatial orientation for older adults in VR. To address this gap, we selected the SilverCycling system, a VR bike-based locomotion technique that we developed, as a representative of natural motion-based locomotion, guided by findings from our pilot study. We conducted a user study with 16 older adults to compare SilverCycling with the joystick-based controller. The findings suggest SilverCycling's potential to significantly enhance spatial orientation in the open-road urban environment for older adults, offering a better user experience. Based on our findings, we identify key factors influencing spatial orientation and propose design recommendations to make VR locomotion more accessible and user-friendly for older adults.