From One World to Another: Interfaces for Efficiently Transitioning Between Virtual Environments

TL;DR

This study explores user interface designs for efficient virtual environment switching in VR, comparing portals and worlds-in-miniature through empirical testing to identify usability and effectiveness.

Contribution

It introduces and evaluates new VR world switching interfaces, including portals and WiMs, providing insights into their usability and efficiency based on user experiments.

Findings

WiMs enable rapid spatial information acquisition

Portals facilitate quick pre-orientation

WiMs are perceived as most efficient by users

Abstract

Personal computers and handheld devices provide keyboard shortcuts and swipe gestures to enable users to efficiently switch between applications, whereas today's virtual reality (VR) systems do not. In this work, we present an exploratory study on user interface aspects to support efficient switching between worlds in VR. We created eight interfaces that afford previewing and selecting from the available virtual worlds, including methods using portals and worlds-in-miniature (WiMs). To evaluate these methods, we conducted a controlled within-subjects empirical experiment (N=22) where participants frequently transitioned between six different environments to complete an object collection task. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that WiMs supported rapid acquisition of high-level spatial information while searching and were deemed most efficient by participants while portals provided fast pre-orientation. Finally, we present insights into the applicability, usability, and effectiveness of the VR world switching methods we explored, and provide recommendations for their application and future context/world switching techniques and interfaces.