An experimental investigation of menu selection for immersive virtual environments: fixed versus handheld menus

Abstract

With the development of consumer-grade virtual reality (VR) systems, the interface and interaction design for immersive virtual environments have become a critical issue for VR application designers and developers. The previous design experience from conventional VR applications may not be effective anymore. This work investigated two types of menu interfaces (fixed menu and handheld menu) and three selection techniques, hand pointing with button press (Hand-BP), head pointing with button press (Head-BP), and head pointing with dwell (Head-DW), based on performance and subjective assessment. Results showed that the best performing selection technique for fixed menu was Hand-BP, while Head-BP was the most suitable and preferred selection technique for handheld menu. The limitations of different menu interfaces and selection techniques were discussed, and solutions were proposed to overcome the limitations that were found in the experiment. Based on the findings of this study, design guidelines were provided to help designers and developers choose the right menu interface and selection technique for different contexts of use and user groups.