Human factors issues in virtual environments: A review of the literature

Human factors issues in virtual environments: A review of the literature

For a more up-to date investigation, see Immersive FPS Games: User Experience and Performance

Kay M. Stanney

University of Central Florida Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems

Ronald R. Mourant (acm)

Northeastern University Department of Industrial Engineering and Information Systems

Robert S. Kennedy (acm)

RSK Assessments, Inc.

Presence, Vol. 7, No. 4, August 1998, 327–351

If you’re going to remember one(?) thing: 

The paper focuses a lot on Head-Mounted Displays. Although current technology seems to be revisiting this with the Occulus Rift, the majority of VR applications are presented on high-resolution monitors and Dolby 7.1. Keeping the display system off of the head seems to have made the whole approach much more attainable (e.g. Cybersickness becomes only a minor consideration in FPS games).

It is clear that if humans cannot perform efficiently in virtual environments, thereby compromising the effectiveness of the Human Virtual Environment Interaction (HVEI) or the transfer of training, then further pursuit of this technology may be fruitless. Yep that’s how it turned out, alright.

It is essential to control for such factors so that it is not erroneously concluded that human performance is enhanced by immersion (or other factors) when the improved VR performance is directly related to the fact that subjects received more training time or training trials.

Overview:

If virtual systems are to be effective and well received by their users, considerable human-factors research needs to be accomplished. This paper provides an overview of many of these human-factors issues, including human performance efficiency in virtual worlds (which is likely inuenced by task characteristics, user characteristics, human sensory and motor physiology, multimodal interaction, and the potential need for new design metaphors); health and safety issues (of which cybersickness and deleterious physiological aftereffects may pose the most concern); and the social impact of the technology.

Perhaps this need for human factors research was best articulated by Shneiderman (1992) who stated that ‘‘analyses of VR user-interface issues may be too sober a process for those who are enjoying their silicon trips, but it may aid in choosing the appropriate applications and refining the technologies’’

This paper has organized the area of human factors research in virtual environments (VEs) into three primary subtopics: human performance efficiency in virtual worlds; health and safety issues; and potential social implications of VE technology.

Wann and Mon-Williams (1996, p. 845) stated, in such cases ‘‘the goal is to build (virtual) environments that minimize the learning required to operate within them, but maximize the information yield.’’

Factors contributing to human performance in VEs predictably include the navigational complexity of the VE, the degree of presence provided by the virtual world, and the users’ performance on benchmark tests

The degree of presence experienced by an individual may influence human performance.

Lampton, Knerr, Goldberg, Bliss, Moshell, and Blau (1994) have developed the Virtual Environment Performance Battery (VEPAB). The VEPAB includes the determination of visual acuity, locomotion ability, object manipulation ability, tracking ability, and reaction time while viewing virtual worlds.

Some evidence of the benefits of stereoscopic visualization comes from work by Kim, Tendick, and Stark (1993).

The implication is that, if virtual environments immerse learners in environments similar to the intended task environments, it follows that VE training should promote more original learning and greater positive transfer.

User differences have already been reported to influence the sense of presence (Barfield & Weghorst, 1993) and cybersickness experienced by VE subjects (Parker & Harm, 1992). What is not as obvious are which user characteristics have a subtle impact and which substantially alter virtual experiences.

In HCI one of the primary user characteristics that interface designers adapt to is the level of experience, or the expert-versus-novice paradigm (Dix et al., 1993; Eberts, 1994; Egan, 1988). Eberts (1994) noted that experts and novices have diverse capabilities and requirements that may not be compatible.

Current systems are generally limited to a FOV of 70 degrees per eye and do not provide enough peripheral vision. Many VE tasks may require FOVs of 100 degrees or more in order to achieve a feeling of immersion. As the FOV is expanded, however, the resolution of the projected images declines. [The Oculus Rift has a horizontal field of view (HFoV) of approximately 90 degrees in each lens – Phil]

 

Tags: Human Factors, Multimodal, Performance, Skills, User Analysis