Text Input in Virtual Reality Using a Tracked Drawing Tablet

Abstract

We present an experiment evaluating the effectiveness of a tracked drawing tablet for use in virtual reality (VR) text input. Participants first completed a text input pre-test, entering several phrases using a physical keyboard. Participants then entered text in VR using an HTC Vive, with a tracker mounted on a drawing tablet with a QWERTY soft keyboard overlaid on the virtual tablet. This was similar to text input using stylus-supported mobile devices. Our results indicate that not only did participants prefer the Vive controller, it also offered superior entry speed (16.31 wpm vs. 12.79 wpm with the tablet and stylus) and error rates (4.1% vs. 6.4%). Pre-test scores were also correlated to measured entry speeds, and reveal that user typing speed on physical keyboards provides a modest predictor of VR text input speed (R2 of 0.6 for the Vive controller, 0.45 for the tablet).