Direct Interaction Word-Gesture Text Input in Virtual Reality

Abstract

As Virtual Reality (VR) devices become more affordable and experience a more widespread adoption, applications for this immersive technology become more diverse, increasingly also including text-based uses, such as messaging and text processing. While text input methods for VR have existed for a long time, none have reached the ease-of-use or performance of conventional, physical keyboards. In the absence of physical keyboards, touch-screen devices have adopted word-gesture keyboards, that allow users to input text through smooth motions. In this work, we introduce a word-gesture keyboard for VR that uses direct interaction with a virtual keyboard, to allow a more direct transfer of hand motion. We present a preliminary evaluation with promising results, which suggest usability improvements over more well established methods of text input in VR.