In virtual worlds, designers often consider "real walking" to be the gold standard when it comes to locomotion, as shown by attempts to incorporate walking techniques within tasks. When real walking is not conceivable due to several different limitations of virtual interactions (space, hardware, tracking, etc.) a walking simulation technique is sometimes used. We call these moderate interaction fidelity techniques and based upon literature, we can speculate that they will often provide an inferior experience if compared to a technique of high or low fidelity. We believe that there is an uncanny valley which is formed if a diagram is created using interaction fidelity and user effectiveness. Finding more points on this graph would help to support claims we have made with our hypothesis.
There are several studies done previously in the field of virtual reality, however a vast majority of them considered interaction fidelity as a single construct. We argue that interaction fidelity is more complex involving independent components, with each of those components having an effect of the actual effectiveness of an interface. In addition, the intention of the designer can also have influence on how effective an interface can be. In this study we are going to be doing a deeper look into devices which attempt to overcome the limitations of physical space which we will call semi-natural interfaces. Semi-natural interfaces are sometimes difficult to use at first due to mismatch of cues or possibly due to a lack of fidelity, but training has been shown to be beneficial to overcome this difficulty. As of today, designers have not yet found a fully general solution to walking in large virtual environments. / Master of Science / When a user enters a virtual world, they expect it to be as realistic as possible. They expect to be able to move around an interact with objects exactly how they would in real life. This expectation is, at times, met with dismay when there are limitations between what the user expects to be able to do and what is possible for the experience to achieve. The level of realism in a virtual world is something that we call fidelity, and this comes in different levels ranging from low to high. An interaction in virtual reality which is far from how you would make that same interaction in the real world is called a low fidelity technique and this can be compared to a standard game controller being used to move a character forward. On the other spectrum, a technique in virtual reality with high similarities to the real-world interaction is call high fidelity. An example of a high-fidelity technique would be similar to having a user physically walk from one point to another to move the virtual character. In several studies it has been said that both high fidelity and low fidelity techniques have a positive effect on users and they perform well using them, but if the fidelity of the technique falls in between, it will have a negative effect on user experience. The studies in this document test several different fidelity levels of techniques in an attempt to add evidence to the hypothesis that medium fidelity devices currently do not improve user experience and in fact, are creating a negative one.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/83403 |
| Date | 25 May 2018 |
| Creators | Warren, Lawrence Elliot |
| Contributors | Computer Science, Bowman, Douglas A., Polys, Nicholas F., North, Christopher L. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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