While low-cost smartphone-based mobile VR (MVR) improves access to extended reality (XR) technology, it lacks the interaction capabilities of high-end devices. Following PRISMA 2020 methodology, we present a survey of both established and emerging MVR interaction techniques for travel, selection, manipulation, and system control. We reviewed literature from four databases published between 2011–2025 that reported evaluations of MVR interaction techniques. We filtered an initial set of 1041 publications to 64 articles and synthesized the current state of MVR interaction, focusing on cost-accessible approaches. We found many effective low-cost emerging selection and travel techniques, but low-cost object manipulation techniques remain problematic. Acoustic sensing offered superior 3D interaction performance than other sensing modalities while keeping cost low. Our findings inform a novel taxonomy of emerging MVR interaction techniques. We further present a toolkit supporting the design of cost-accessible XR interactions. Our findings underscore practical advantages of DIY approaches to future standalone XR applications developments.

Virtual reality (VR) enables immersive, tightly controlled experiments but complicates subjective measurement: moving participants out of the virtual environment (VE) to complete questionnaires changes the measurement context and can increase recall bias. Questionnaires embedded in the VE $({}_{IN} \text{VRQs})$ enable immediate, time-efficient self-reports and repeated sampling, yet adoption is limited by concerns that ${}_{IN} \text{VRQs}$ might bias primary experiential measures and by the implementation burden of usable interfaces. In this within-subject study, 43 participants completed post-task questionnaires using three representative 2D ${}_{IN} \text{VRQ}$ interface designs: a body-anchored watch (direct touch), a world-anchored station (handheld pointer), and a world-anchored board at 5 m (laser pointer). Usability and task load differed significantly across interfaces, revealing clear design trade-offs. Interview feedback highlighted corresponding ergonomic themes. In contrast, ratings of presence and flow related to the constant task and VE showed no practically relevant differences across interfaces, supported by equivalence tests. Findings suggest that once basic usability requirements are met, interface choice is unlikely to meaningfully bias experiential measures in similar setups. This study contributes methodological guidance for implementing or selecting ${}_{IN} \text{VRQ}$ tools to improve VR study quality, comparability, and reproducibility. Supplemental materials are available at osf.io/528yk (CC BY 4.0).

Virtual reality (VR) promises immersive gaming experiences, yet remains inaccessible for many gamers with upper limb motor impairments (ULMI) by relying on hand- and arm-based interactions. We investigate these accessibility challenges by first surveying gamers with ULMI on their experiences in VR gaming, then used the survey results to support a series of co-design workshops that connected gamers with professional VR designers to collaboratively address the limitations of current VR game controls. Our findings not only present actionable design considerations for more accessible VR interactions, but also motivate further accessibility research that facilitates direct collaboration between end users and designers to fully realize the immersive, inclusive potential of VR.

Numerous studies have examined reaction time differences due to stimulus or response methods but few have examined the relationship between these factors, and even fewer in a video game context. We present a formal experiment comparing the impact of four display types across four input methods, and three indicator speeds across three target area sizes on accuracy and response time in game-like displays. Our main findings indicate a number of significant main effects across different display types, indicator speeds, and target area sizes, and many interaction effects between pairs of speeds and sizes. The vertical meter and horizontal meter were found to have a significantly faster response time than the circular meter and pulsating ring. The vertical meter, horizontal meter, and circular meter were all found to have higher average accuracy than the pulsating ring, but participants generally reported finding the circular meter the easiest to successfully respond to due to its cyclical nature. Overall, larger target sizes and faster speeds led to lower response times, and larger target sizes and slower speeds led to higher accuracy.

Previous research suggests that the congruency between common VR input devices - such as controllers or hand tracking - and their visual representations (e.g., hand or controller avatars) influences user experience and performance. However, the specific effects of input-avatar combinations remain underexplored. We study the effects of common input devices (hand tracking and controllers) and visual representations (hand and controller avatars) on performance and perceived success in target acquisition tasks. We included both grasping and pinching gestures across 16 combinations of input, avatar, and target size. Results indicate that hand tracking benefits from any form of visual representation-even when mismatched-achieving up to 5.8% greater accuracy compared to having no avatar, likely due to its reliance on visual feedback in the absence of a physical prop. Controllers were generally preferred and offered faster task completion. However, mismatched avatars had a stronger negative effect with controllers, particularly when the virtual gesture did not align with the physical action, leading to a 5.6% drop in accuracy compared to the matched condition-suggesting that inaccurate feedback can be more disruptive than having no avatar feedback at all.

We present an experiment exploring how the controller’s virtual representation impacts target acquisition performance across MR and VR contexts. Participants performed selection tasks comparing four visual configurations: a virtual controller, a virtual hand, both the controller and the hand, and neither representation. We found performance comparable between VR and MR, and switching between them did not impact the user’s ability to perform basic tasks. Controller representations mimicking reality enhanced performance across both modes. However, users perceived performance differently in MR, indicating the need for unique MR design considerations, particularly regarding spatial awareness.

To address the need for high-complexity low-cost interaction methods for mobile VR, we present a Cardboard Controller, supporting 6-degree-of-freedom target selection while being made of low-cost, highly accessible materials. We present two studies, one evaluating selection activation methods, and the other comparing performance and user experience of the Cardboard Controller using ray-casting and the virtual hand. Our Cardboard Controller has comparable throughput and task completion time to similar 3D input devices and can effectively support pointing and grabbing interactions, particularly when objects are within reach. We propose guidelines for designing low-cost interaction methods and input devices for mobile VR to encourage future research towards the democratization of VR.

Performance models of interaction, such as Fitts' law, are important tools for predicting and explaining human motor performance and for designing high-performance user interfaces. Extensive prior work has proposed such models for the 3D interaction task of distal pointing, in which the user points their hand or a device at a distant target in order to select it. However, there is no consensus on how to compute the index of difficulty for distal pointing tasks. We present a preliminary study suggesting that existing models may not be sufficient to model distal pointing performance with current virtual reality technologies. Based on these results, we hypothesized that both the form of the model and the standard method for collecting empirical data for pointing tasks might need to change in order to achieve a more accurate and valid distal pointing model. In our main study, we used a new methodology to collect distal pointing data and evaluated traditional models, purely ballistic models, and two-part models. Ultimately, we found that the best model used a simple Fitts'-law-style index of difficulty with angular measures of amplitude and width.

Social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the popularity of online gaming; people used gaming as a coping mechanism to help relieve psychological distress while self-isolating. Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) in particular saw an increase in users through 2020. We present a study of the impact of established communities on social well-being within one MMORPG. We conducted an online survey (402 participants) in World of Warcraft-specific Discord and Reddit communities in March 2021. Our survey consisted of multiple choice and short answer questions to gauge how players’ perceived well-being was impacted by in-game relationships and interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our qualitative thematic analysis indicated that World of Warcraft helped participants form valued, meaningful relationships with other players, gave them a sense of purpose, and alleviated negative feelings brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on these results, we describe the unique affordances of MMORPG platforms that support social connection, and provide design recommendations to MMORPG developers for facilitating positive social interactions.

The goal of this research is to provide much needed empirical data on how the fidelity of popular hand gesture tracked based pointing metaphors versus commodity controller based input affects the efficiency and speed-accuracy tradeoff in users’ spatial selection in personal space interactions in VR. We conduct two experiments in which participants select spherical targets arranged in a circle in personal space, or near-field within their maximum arms reach distance, in VR. Both experiments required participants to select the targets with either a VR controller or with their dominant hand’s index finger, which was tracked with one of two popular contemporary tracking methods. In the first experiment, the targets are arranged in a flat circle in accordance with the ISO 9241-9 Fitts’ law standard, and the simulation selected random combinations of 3 target amplitudes and 3 target widths. Targets were placed centered around the users’ eye level, and the arrangement was placed at either 60%, 75%, or 90% depth plane of the users’ maximum arm’s reach. In experiment 2, the targets varied in depth randomly from one depth plane to another within the same configuration of 13 targets within a trial set, which resembled button selection task in hierarchical menus in differing depth planes in the near-field. The study was conducted using the HTC Vive head-mounted display, and used either a VR controller (HTC Vive), low-fidelity virtual pointing (Leap Motion), or a high-fidelity virtual pointing (tracked VR glove) conditions. Our results revealed that low-fidelity pointing performed worse than both high-fidelity pointing and the VR controller. Overall, target selection performance was found to be worse in depth planes closer to the maximum arms reach, as compared to middle and nearer distances.

We present a study of the effects of field of view (FOV), target movement, and number of targets on visual search performance in virtual reality. We compared visual search tasks in two FOVs (~65°, ~32.5°) under two target movement speeds (static, dynamic) while varying the visible target count, with targets potentially out of the user’s view. We examined the expected linear relationship between search time and number of items, to explore how moving and/or out-of-view targets affected this relationship. Overall, search performance increased with a wide FOV, but decreased when targets were moving and with more visible targets. FOV more strongly influenced search performance than target movement. Neither FOV nor target movement meaningfully altered the linear relationship between visual search time and number of items. Participants also rated perceived workload for each condition; FOV and target movement both negatively affected the perceived workload, with target movement being a more significant factor.

The coupling between perception and action has seldom been explored in sophisticated motor behaviour such as 3D pointing. In this study, we investigated how 3D pointing accuracy, measured by a depth estimation task, could be affected by the target appearing in different visual eccentricities. Specifically, we manipulated the visual eccentricity of the target and its depth in virtual reality. Participants wore a head-mounted-display with an integrated eye-tracker and docked a cursor into a target. We adopted a within-participants factorial design with three variables. The first variable is Eccentricity: the location of the target on one of five horizontal eccentricities (left far periphery, left near periphery, foveal, right near periphery and right far periphery). The second variable is Depth at three levels and the third variable is Feedback Loop with two levels: open/closed. Eccentricity is refactored into Motion Correspondence between the starting location of the cursor and the target location with four levels: periphery to fovea, fovea to periphery, periphery to periphery, fovea to fovea. The results showed that the pointing accuracy is modulated mainly by the target locations rather than the initial locations of the effector (hand). Visible feedback during pointing improved performance.

We propose a surface warping technique we call warped virtual surfaces (WVS). WVS is similar to applying CD gain to mouse cursor on a screen and is used with traditionally 1:1 input devices, in our case, a tablet and stylus, for use with VR head-mounted displays (HMDs). WVS allows users to interact with arbitrarily large virtual panels in VR while getting the benefits of passive haptic feedback from a fixed-sized physical panel. To determine the extent to which WVS affects user performance, we conducted an experiment with 24 participants using a Fitts' law reciprocal tapping task to compare different scale factors. Results indicate there was a significant difference in movement time for large scale factors. However, for throughput (ranging from 3.35 3.47 bps) and error rate (ranging from 3.6 5.4%), our analysis did not find a significant difference between scale factors. Using non-inferiority statistical testing (a form of equivalence testing), we show that performance in terms of throughput and error rate for large scale factors is no worse than a 1-to-1 mapping. Our results suggest WVS is a promising way of providing large tactile surfaces in VR, using small physical surfaces, and with little impact on user performance.

The trade-off between speed and accuracy in precision tasks is important to evaluate during user interaction with input devices. When different sensory cues are added or altered in such interactions, those cues have an effect on this trade-off, and thus, they affect overall user performance. For instance, adding cues like haptic feedback and stereoscopic viewing will result in more realistic user interaction, thus improving performance in these tasks. Also, adding a noticeable disparity between physical and virtual movements creates a mismatch between visual and proprioceptive systems, which generally has a negative effect on performance. In this study, we investigate the effects of haptic feedback, stereoscopic viewing, and visuo-proprioceptive mismatch on how quickly and accurately users complete a virtual pick-and-place task using the PHANToM OMNI. Through this experiment, we find that in the movement phase of a ring transfer, movement time and user performance are affected by haptic feedback and visuo-proprioceptive mismatch, and the main effects of stereoscopic viewing appears to be limited to the more precise step when the ring is around the target peg.

We present a study of selection techniques for low-cost mobile VR devices, such as Google Cardboard, using the outward facing camera on modern smartphones. We compared three selection techniques, air touch, head ray, and finger ray. Initial evaluation indicates that hand-based selection (air touch) was the worst. A ray cast using the tracked finger position offered much higher selection performance. Our results suggest that camera-based mobile tracking is feasible with ray-based techniques.

In this extended abstract, we argue that for virtual reality to be a successful tool in social learning spaces (e.g. classrooms or museums) we must also look outside the virtual reality literature to provide greater focus on accessible and social collaborative content. We explore work within Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and social VR domains to move towards developing a design framework for socio-educational VR. We also briefly describe our work-in-progress application framework, Circles, including these features in WebVR.

We propose a workshop soliciting submissions on the topics of spatial and 3D interaction in highly fidelity graphical interactive systems, especially video games and virtual reality systems. Topics will cover all aspects of interaction in these systems, including input-related issues such as efficient control mappings, spatial input device features (e.g., low latency, input noise, etc.), as well as output-related issues such as display hardware features (e.g., stereoscopic rendering, head-tracking), and information visualization (e.g., game HUDs for status information). We propose to include both position papers, as well as papers including at least preliminary studies on issues in these areas.

We present a study of cursors for selecting 2D-projected 3D targets. We compared a stereo- and mono-rendered (one-eyed) cursor using two mouse-based and two remote pointing techniques in a 3D Fitts' law pointing experiment. The first experiment used targets at fixed depths. Results indicate that one-eyed cursors only improve screen-plane pointing techniques, and that constant target depth does not influence pointing throughput. A second experiment included pointing between targets at varying depths and used only "screen-plane" pointing techniques. Our results suggest that in the absence of stereo cue conflicts, screen-space projections of Fitts' law parameters (target size and distance) yield constant throughput despite target depth differences and produce better models of performance.

This demo presents a desktop VR system for evaluating human performance in 3D pointing tasks. The system supports different input devices (e.g., mouse and 6DOF remote pointer), pointing techniques (e.g., screen-plane and depth cursors), and cursor visualization styles (e.g., one-eyed and stereo 3D cursors). The objective is to comprehensively compare all combinations of these conditions. We especially focus in on fair and direct comparisons between 2D and 3D pointing tasks. Finally, our system includes a new pointing technique that outperforms standard ray pointing.

The ISO 9241 Part 9 standard pointing task is used to evaluate passive haptic feedback in target selection in a virtual environment (VE). Participants performed a tapping task using a tracked stylus in a CAVE both with, and without passive haptic feedback provided by a plastic panel co-located with the targets. Pointing throughput (but not speed nor accuracy alone) was significantly higher with haptic feedback than without it, confirming previous results using an alternative experimental paradigm.

We investigate the effects of input device latency and spatial jitter on 2D pointing tasks and a 3D movement. First, we characterize jitter and latency in a 3D tracking device and an optical mouse used for baseline comparison. We present an experiment based on ISO 9241-9, which measures performance of pointing devices. We added latency and jitter to the mouse and compared it to a 3D tracker. Results indicate that latency has a stronger effect on performance than small spatial jitter. A second experiment found that erratic jitter "spikes" can affect 3D movement performance.

We present two studies to assess which physical factors of various input devices influence 3D object movement tasks. In particular, we evaluate the factors that seem to make the mouse a good input device for constrained 3D movement tasks. The first study examines the effect of a supporting surface across orientation of input device movement and display orientation. Surprisingly, no significant results were found for the effect of physical support for constrained movement techniques. Also, no significant difference was found between matching the orientation of the display to that of the input device movement. A second study found that the mouse outperformed all tracker conditions for speed, but the presence or absence of support had no significant effect when tracker movement is constrained to 2D.