Enhancing immersion in Virtual Reality sports through Physical Interactions

TL;DR

This paper explores designing a physical VR controller prototype for skating to improve immersion by aligning real-world actions with virtual experiences, evaluated through user feedback.

Contribution

It introduces a new physical controller prototype with realistic tangible mapping tailored for VR sports, addressing limitations of existing controllers.

Findings

Enhanced perceived interactivity and reality in VR skating

Increased spatial presence and enjoyment with the new controller

Guidelines for designing sport-specific VR controllers

Abstract

Recent discoveries in VR have opened up scope for designing physical tools and controllers to enhance immersion, through perceived reality. In a virtually simulated sports scenario it is challenging to immerse user because most of the available controllers are unable to bridge the user experience in the real world to the actions in the virtual world. My research is to identify HCI problems in existing VR controllers, design a physical controller prototype with realistic tangible mapping, trying to solve the existing problems and evaluate it in a designed VR game for skating. Its immersiveness would be graded on Likert scale on parameters like perceived interactivity and reality, spatial presence and enjoyment. The evaluation will be done after trial runs and feedback sessions by playing the game with the designed controller and comparing it with ones available in the market. The findings will help people understand what all parameters we should consider while designing futuristic controllers, customized for a particular sport.