Investigating Creation Perspectives and Icon Placement Preferences for On-Body Menus in Virtual Reality

TL;DR

This study explores how different creation perspectives affect on-body menu effectiveness in VR and uncovers user preferences for icon placement, providing insights to improve on-body interaction design.

Contribution

It compares creation perspectives in on-body menus and identifies user preferences for icon placement, advancing understanding of effective VR on-body interface design.

Findings

Mirror perspective improves creation speed and recall accuracy.

Users prefer specific icon placements based on category.

Categories like Leisure and Social Media often co-occur.

Abstract

On-body menus present a novel interaction paradigm within Virtual Reality (VR) environments by embedding virtual interfaces directly onto the user's body. Unlike traditional screen-based interfaces, on-body menus enable users to interact with virtual options or icons visually attached to their physical form. In this paper, We investigated the impact of the creation process on the effectiveness of on-body menus, comparing first-person, third-person, and mirror perspectives. Our first study ($N$ = 12) revealed that the mirror perspective led to faster creation times and more accurate recall compared to the other two perspectives. To further explore user preferences, we conducted a second study ($N$ = 18) utilizing a VR system with integrated body tracking. By combining distributions of icons from both studies ($N$ = 30), we confirmed significant preferences in on-body menu placement based on icon category (e.g., Social Media icons were consistently placed on forearms). We also discovered associations between categories, such as Leisure and Social Media icons frequently co-occurring. Our findings highlight the importance of the creation process, uncover user preferences for on-body menu organization, and provide insights to guide the development of intuitive and effective on-body interactions within virtual environments.