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A Comparison of Virtual Reality Menu Archetypes: Raycasting, Direct Input, and Marking Menus
Direct input excels in single-level virtual reality (VR) menus, while marking menus are fastest for two-level hierarchical VR menus. Raycasting, though common, showed slower performance but higher usability ratings.
Area of Science:
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Virtual Reality User Interfaces
- Interaction Design
Background:
- Virtual reality (VR) menu design is crucial for user experience.
- Common VR menu techniques include raycasting, direct input, and marking menus.
- Understanding the performance and usability of these techniques is essential for effective VR application development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the prevalence and performance of archetypal VR menu techniques.
- To compare the relative performance of raycast, direct, and marking menus in VR.
- To provide evidence-based recommendations for VR menu design.
Main Methods:
- Surveyed 108 menu interfaces across 84 commercial VR applications to identify common design characteristics.
- Designed and implemented raycast, direct, and marking menu archetypes.
- Conducted a two-experiment comparison evaluating menu performance with one and two levels of hierarchy (8 or 24 items).
Main Results:
- Direct input was the fastest for single-level menus, unaffected by item count.
- Marking menus were fastest for two-level hierarchical menus, irrespective of item count.
- Raycasting menus, while common, were among the slowest but rated most consistently usable.
Conclusions:
- Direct input and marking menus offer distinct performance advantages depending on menu hierarchy.
- Raycasting, despite slower speeds, provides consistent usability, suggesting trade-offs in VR menu design.
- Recommendations are provided for optimizing VR menu design based on interaction technique performance and usability.
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