Design and evaluation of alphabetic and numeric input methods for virtual reality

KUŤÁK, David, Danielle Kathryn LANGLOIS, Roman ROZIČ, Jan BYŠKA, Haichao MIAO, Simone KRIGLSTEIN and Barbora KOZLÍKOVÁ. Design and evaluation of alphabetic and numeric input methods for virtual reality. Computers & Graphics. Elsevier, 2024. ISSN 0097-8493. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2024.103955.

Basic information

• Original name: Design and evaluation of alphabetic and numeric input methods for virtual reality
• Authors: KUŤÁK, David, Danielle Kathryn LANGLOIS, Roman ROZIČ, Jan BYŠKA, Haichao MIAO, Simone KRIGLSTEIN and Barbora KOZLÍKOVÁ.
• Edition: Computers & Graphics, Elsevier, 2024, 0097-8493.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 10200 1.2 Computer and information sciences
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 2.500 in 2022
• Organization unit: Faculty of Informatics
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2024.103955
• Keywords in English: Virtual reality, Head-mounted displays, User evaluation, Alphabetic input, Numeric input, Alphanumeric input, Virtual keyboards
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

In today’s virtual reality (VR), users have various ways to influence their VR experience, including alphanumeric input. While typing characters and numbers is straightforward on desktop computers, it presents challenges and opportunities in head-mounted display VR due to specific interaction methods and a lack of real-world visual stimuli. Addressing these open questions, our work implements and evaluates ten approaches to alphabetic and numeric inputs in VR. We describe the design motivation behind these input methods and evaluate them in a user study with 40 participants divided into groups for alphabetic and numeric keyboards. This comparison investigates each method’s performance and user interactions. Our findings suggest that different input methods significantly impact words per minute and error rates, and that certain keyboard designs may receive better subjective evaluations despite poorer objective performance.