Does immersion make a virtual environment more usable?

  • Authors:
  • Casey Boyd

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

  • Venue:
  • CHI EA '97 CHI '97 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 1997

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Abstract

Usability tests comparing three different virtual environment (VE) interface designs indicate that an immersive VE is more usable than two non-immersive VEs for a task with search and navigation components. Three interface designs were tried in a counterbalanced within-subjects procedure with ten randomly-ordered trials for each interface design. One of the interface designs used a head-tracked, stereoscopic head-mounted display. The other two interface designs used hand-tracking and were non-immersive---the visual display appeared on a desktop monitor. Results for sixty participants doing the same task with each interface design show faster task completion times with the immersive design.