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Using standard handheld interfaces for VR locomotion may not provide a believable self-motion experience and can contribute to unwanted side effects such as motion sickness, disorientation, or increased cognitive load. This paper demonstrates how using a seated leaning-based locomotion interface --HeadJoystick-- in VR ground-based navigation affects user experience, usability, and performance. In three within-subject studies, we compared controller (touchpad/thumbstick) with a more embodied interface ("HeadJoystick") where users moved their head and/or leaned in the direction of desired locomotion. In both conditions, users sat on a regular office chair and used it to control virtual rotations. In the first study, 24 participants used HeadJoystick versus Controller in three complementary tasks including reach-the-target, follow-the-path, and racing (dynamic obstacle avoidance). In the second study, 18 participants repeatedly used HeadJoystick versus Controller (8 one-minute trials each) in a reach-the-target task. To evaluate potential benefits of different brake mechanisms, in the third study 18 participants were asked to stop within each target area for one second. All three studies consistently showed advantages of HeadJoystick over Controller: we observed improved performance in all tasks, as well as higher user ratings for enjoyment, spatial presence, immersion, vection intensity, usability, ease of learning, ease of use, and rated potential for daily and long-term use, while reducing motion sickness and task load. Overall, our results suggest that leaning-based interfaces such as HeadJoystick provide an interesting and more embodied alternative to handheld interfaces in driving, reach-the-target, and follow-the-path tasks, and potentially a wider range of scenarios.

This paper reports on a work-in-progress study to investigate if/how leaning-based interfaces affect simultaneous locomotion and interaction. We compare physical walking and Controller with a seated (i.e., HeadJoystick) and standing (i.e., Naviboard) leaning-based interface. We disambiguated performance in locomotion versus interaction using a novel experimental paradigm, where participants should point toward moving targets using their virtual light-saber while actively following a moving platform.

Flying in virtual reality (VR) using standard handheld controllers can be cumbersome and contribute to unwanted side effects such as motion sickness and disorientation. This paper investigates a novel hands-free flying interface - HeadJoystick, where the user moves their head similar to a joystick handle toward the target direction to control virtual translation velocity. The user sits on a regular office swivel chair and rotates it physically to control virtual rotation using 1:1 mapping. We evaluated short-term (Study 1) and extended usage effects through repeated usage (Study 2) of the HeadJoystick versus handheld interfaces in two within-subject studies, where participants flew through a sequence of increasingly difficult tunnels in the sky. Using the HeadJoystick instead of handheld interfaces improved both user experience and performance, in terms of accuracy, precision, ease of learning, ease of use, usability, long-term use, presence, immersion, sensation of self-motion, workload, and enjoyment in both studies. These findings demonstrate the benefits of using leaning-based interfaces for VR flying and potentially similar telepresence applications such as remote flight with quadcopter drones. From a theoretical perspective, we also show how leaning-based motion cueing interacts with full physical rotation to improve user experience and performance compared to the gamepad.

Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) provide immersive experiences for virtual reality. However, their field of view (FOV) is still relatively small compared to the human eye, which adding sparse peripheral displays (SPDs) could address. We designed a new SPD, SparseLightVR2, which increases the HMD's FOV to 180° horizontally. We evaluated SparseLightVR2 with a study (N=29) by comparing three conditions: 1) no SPD, where the peripheral display (PD) was inactive; 2) extended SPD, where the PD provided visual cues consistent with and extending the HMD's main screen; and 3) counter-vection SPD, where the PD's visuals were flipped horizontally during VR travel to provide optic flow in the opposite direction of the travel. The participants experienced passive motion on a linear path and reported introspective measures such as sensation of self-motion. Results showed, compared to no SPD, both extended and counter-vection SPDs provided a more natural experience of motion, while extended SPD also enhanced vection intensity and believability of movement. Yet, visually induced motion sickness (VIMS) was not affected by display condition. To investigate the reason behind these non-significant results, we conducted a follow-up study and had users increase peripheral counter-vection visuals on the central HMD screen until they nulled out vection. Our results suggest extending HMDs through SPDs enhanced vection, naturalness, and believability of movement without enhancing VIMS, but reversed SPD motion cues might not be strong enough to reduce vection and VIMS.

In this paper, we describe a user study comparing five different locomotion interfaces for virtual reality locomotion. We compared a standard non-motion cueing interface, Joystick (Xbox), with four motion cueing interfaces, NaviChair (stool with springs), MuvMan (sit/stand active stool), Head-Directed (Oculus Rift DK2), and Swivel Chair (everyday office chair with leaning capability). Each interface had two degrees of freedom to move forward/backward and rotate using velocity (rate) control. The aim of this mixed methods study was to better understand relevant user experience factors and guide the design of future locomotion interfaces. This study employed methods from HCI to provide an understanding of why users behave a certain way while using the interface and to unearth any new issues with the design. Participants were tasked to search for objects in a virtual city while they provided talk-aloud feedback and we logged their behaviour. Subsequently, they completed a post-experimental questionnaire on their experience. We found that the qualitative themes of control, usability, and experience echoed the results of the questionnaire, providing internal validity. The quantitative measures revealed the Joystick to be significantly more comfortable and precise than the motion cueing interfaces. However, the qualitative feedback and interviews showed this was due to the reduced perceived controllability and safety of the motion cueing interfaces. Designers of these interfaces should consider using a backrest if users need to lean backwards and avoid using velocity-control for rotations when using HMDs.

Despite recent advances in high quality Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), designing locomotion interfaces for Virtual Reality (VR) is still challenging, and might contribute to unwanted side effects such as disorientation and motion sickness. To address these issues, we investigated the potentials of leaning-based 360° locomotion interfaces, which provide full-rotational motion cues (unlimited 360° rotations) for rotation, and leaning-based translational motion cues for forward/backward and sideways translation.

We describe here a pilot user study comparing five different locomotion interfaces for virtual reality (VR) locomotion. We compared a standard non-motion cueing interface, Joystick, with four leaning-based seated motion-cueing interfaces: NaviChair, MuvMan, Head-Directed and Swivel Chair. The aim of this mixed methods study was to investigate the usability and user experience of each interface, in order to better understand relevant factors and guide the design of future ground-based VR locomotion interfaces. We asked participants to give talk-aloud feedback and simultaneously recorded their responses while they were performing a search task in VR. Afterwards, participants completed an online questionnaire. Although the Joystick was rated as more comfortable and precise than the other interfaces, the leaning-based interfaces showed a trend to provide more enjoyment and a greater sense of self-motion. There were also potential issues of using velocity-control for rotations in leaning-based interfaces when using HMDs instead of stationary displays. Developers need to focus on improving the controllability and perceived safety of these seated motion cueing interfaces.

This research aims to investigate if using a more embodied interface that includes motion cueing can facilitate spatial updating compared to a more traditional non-embodied interface. The ultimate goal is to create a simple, elegant, and effective self-motion control interface. Using a pointing task, we quantify spatial updating in terms of mean pointing error to determine how two modes of locomotion compare: user powered motion cueing (use your body to swivel and tilt a joystick-like interface) and no-motion cueing (traditional joystick). Because the user-powered chair is a more embodied interface providing some minimal motion cueing, we hypothesized it should more effectively support spatial updating and, thus, increase task performance. Results showed, however, the user-powered chair did not significantly improve mean pointing performance in a virtual spatial orientation task (i.e., knowing where users are looking in the VE). Exit interviews revealed the control mechanism for the user-powered chair was not as accurate or easy to use as the joystick, although many felt more immersed. We discuss how user feedback can guide the design of more effective user-powered motion cueing to overcome usability issues and realize benefits of motion cueing.

Over the recent five years, the Regenerative Design concept has considerably intended to understand the factors of recovering the environmental and socioeconomic damages of the last-century global industrialization. Moreover, it has attempted to consider the evolutions within and out-with its assessing system/s. As a short communication, this paper attempts to argue the fundamentals to develop precise computerized Evolution Analysis Systems (EAS), in order to address the future identification requirements, of Regenerative Developments. Therefore, as an interdisciplinary discussion, the paper argues the applicable systems to develop evolutionary algorithms, with a specific focus in Genetic Algorithms (GA), as one of the most efficient approaches to for evolutionary quantification. Furthermore, the paper introduces the Second Life approach as a significant example of evolutionary computation, to achieve better EASs, as a foundation of reliable Regenerative Analysis Systems (RAS). Indeed, the paper suggests, a critical evolution-based Regenerative Analysis approach, as a basis to develop future Regenerative Analysis and Regenerative Design software.