Nomadic Virtual Reality: Exploring New Interaction Concepts for Mobile Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Displays

ABSTRACT

Technical progress and miniaturization enables virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) now to be solely operated using a smartphone as a display, processing unit and sensor unit. These mobile VR HMDs (e.g. Samsung GearVR) allow for a whole new interaction scenario, where users can bring their HMD with them wherever they want and immerse themselves anytime at any place (nomadic VR). However, most of the early research on interaction with VR HMDs focused around stationary setups. My research revolves around enabling new forms of interaction for these nomadic VR scenarios. In my research I choose a user-centered design approach where I build research prototypes to solve potential problems of nomadic VR and evaluate those prototypes in user studies. I am going to present three prototypes revolving around current challenges of nomadic VR (input and feedback).

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)