An Implementation of the HMD-Enabled Interface and System Userbility Test

Abstract

This research includes the study of the existing head-mounted display (HMD)enabled interface program and suggests improved interface scheme of HMD-enabled virtual reality (VR) games. The traditional keyboard and mouse based input schemes need to be replaced by user-friendly interface scheme such as the HMD. The higher the immersion degree of game users is expected, the less user intervention is desired to capture a user input and to give an output to users. For this reason, a user-centric VR environment has been built, where users’ motions such as turning head and raising hands are recognized as meaningful input to the system with the wellknown contact type, Hydra, and non-contact type, Kinect system. Especially, three multiple Kinects are arranged to improve the motion recognition rate. The proposed HMD interface not only aims to increase the degree of mutual interaction between game players and VR games, but also enhances usability of the HMD. Diverse users’ gestures are recognized in combination with newly suggested interfaces. The improved interfaces have been integrated with both representative testbed games which belong to action and sports genres. Action game has been developed and interfaced with non-wearable (non-contact) interface, whereas sports game has been integrated with both contact and non-contact interfaces. After then, the effectiveness and usability of the interface have been assessed according to the empirical evaluation scheme with modified system usability scale (SUS) statements. The SUS test result shows that the proposed interface enhanced the system usability as well as the system interactivity in terms of user satisfaction.