Virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays allow designers to work in embodied ways within virtual environments. Yet despite growing industry interest, little is known about how VR supports or constrains 3D design workflows, leaving questions about its practical value. We explored the experiences and workflows of using head-mounted displays for 3D design through a 12-week study with 55 senior design students. Participants completed questionnaires, produced design projects, and kept journals, which we analyzed. Our results show that VR is viewed as a powerful design tool, where embodiment and spatial interaction underscore design as an immersive experience in its own right. VR excels in freehand design and sketching, but struggles with precision and complexity. However, VR can flexibly fit into broader workflows, where designers move fluently between VR and non-VR tools and activities. We present considerations for integrating VR into design processes, particularly how VR integrates with traditional 3D design tools and activities like sketching.

Although Social Virtual Reality (SVR) affordances are designed to enable embodied social activities and interactions within virtual environments, the ways that users perceive and interpret these affordances can shape how SVR platforms are used and experienced. In this study, we examined the design and use of SVR affordances based on qualitative survey data from 100 SVR users. We observed that user practices diverge in important ways from intended designs, adding complexity to conventional interpretations of SVR platforms as embodied social environments. This research highlights dynamic user behaviour in which users interpret and reconfigure the affordances of SVR platforms, ranging from asocial use cases to actions that reflect the current limits of embodied communication. We contribute findings that may improve SVR design by revealing opportunities to foreground user needs and expectations, leveraging both the designed possibilities of SVR and the interpretations of those possibilities.

For researchers at the intersection of health and human computer interaction, mobile AR presents a compelling platform for public health communication: it is increasingly available, highly customizable, and can present interactive visualizations of complex data. However, designers face challenges not only in adapting appropriate data and relevant public health metrics, but also in assessing their communicative potential and effectiveness for the target community. To contribute insight into this research area, we designed four mobile AR visualizations based on mental health issues and resources for our local university community. We then conducted a mixed-methods field experiment to investigate the impact of our AR visualizations on participants’ awareness and understanding of pressing health issues, and to document barriers to use in this context. We show that our visualizations increased participants’ sense of community connectedness and prompted them to reflect on their relationship with the university community. Based on these findings, we discuss opportunities for the field of human-computer interaction to further support public health communication.

With the increasing availability of consumer virtual reality (VR) devices for personal and recreational use, the domestic contexts of VR design are increasingly important. Given that much of the current interaction design research for VR is conducted in lab-based settings, there is a need for design considerations that engage with the complexities of these real-world spaces. We present an analysis of visual data (e.g., GIFs, videos, photographs) collected from a manual search of Reddit posts that show “play spaces” and other home-based contexts of VR. Our findings offer insight into the diverse and dynamic characteristics of VR spaces, with set-ups ranging from bedrooms to garages, and with the people, objects, impediments, and affordances of individual spaces demonstrating a variety of ways that VR is used in the home. We conclude by discussing directions for future interaction design research that seeks to incorporate physical actions and environments while also engaging with the complex realities of domestic VR.

We present an online narrative using video conferencing that is designed to facilitate collaborative storytelling using physical objects. Although research into the use of video conferencing platforms for storytelling and games is limited, we suggest that there is much to learn from a design space that includes interpretations of popular game formats like escape rooms, role-playing games, and board games. Drawing on examples from online and offline contexts, we focus on the tangible and embodied characteristics of these forms of play to identify narrative design opportunities for video conferencing platforms. We contribute the documentation of our research through design process, resulting in three preliminary design recommendations to help facilitate tangible and embodied remote storytelling.

While multiple studies suggest that female-identified participants are more likely to experience cybersickness in virtual reality (VR), our systematic review of 71 eligible VR publications (59 studies and 12 surveys) pertaining to gender and cybersickness reveals a number of confounding factors in study design (e.g., a variety of technical specifications, tasks, content), a lack of demographic data, and a bias in participant recruitment. Our review shows an ongoing need within VR research to more consistently include and report on women’s experiences in VR to better understand the gendered possibility of cybersickness. Based on the gaps identified in our systematic review, we contribute study design recommendations for future work, arguing that gender considerations are necessary at every stage of VR study design, even when the study is not ‘about’ gender.

We present two proof-of-concept narrative VR experiences with a focus on sound-based physical interactions. Responding to a call to expand upon current design conceptualizations, we draw on tangible sound-based design in order to develop considerations for the body and physical environments within VR narratives. We propose that a focus on the actions the player is asked to perform (e.g., touch, stand, kneel, grasp, walk, listen, reach, dance) can contribute to an understanding of VR as a sensory, embodied medium that offers ways to playfully engage with physical reality rather than simulate it entirely.

We present two proof of concept experiences for a virtual reality (VR) game that draws on several medium-specific qualities of mobile, location-based, and tangible storytelling. In contemporary smartphone-VR, experiences are limited by short playtimes, limited interactions, and limited movement within a physical space. To address these limitations, we suggest a reconceptualization of smartphone-VR. Rather than design that deems the smartphone the least capable VR platform, we propose design that adds VR to an already rich mobile storytelling platform. We argue that by drawing on otherwise separate storytelling media, designers can circumvent limitations related to smartphone-VR while also extending the range of smartphone-based storytelling. We conclude by reflecting on possible implications of this extended design space.

We present two proof of concept sensory experiences designed for virtual reality (VR). Our experiences bring together smell, sound, taste, touch, and sight, focusing on low-cost, non-digital materials and on passive interactions. We also contribute a design rationale and a review of sensory interactions, particularly those designed for VR. We argue that current sensory experiences designed for VR often lack a broader consideration of the senses, especially in their neglect of the non-digital. We discuss some implications of non-digital design for sensory VR, suggesting that there may be opportunities to expand conceptions of what sensory design in VR can be.

We present a system for diegetic tangible objects in virtual reality (VR) narratives. The system integrates a custom-designed sensor unit, built with low-cost off-the-shelf hardware, to track objects in VR and to support a variety of custom-made and found tangibles. In its current form, the sensor unit tracks the objects' orientation and supports the authoring of specifically designed interactions for each tangible object. We contribute our design rationale, sensor unit, and four proof of concept prototypes, including a cube, a stuffed animal, a treasure chest, and a wooden boat, demonstrating how we leverage passive and active haptics to create a closer link between real and virtual worlds. For developers and users of VR, we expand interaction possibilities to include the physical characteristics of tangible objects. For the field of tangible narratives, we expand the current use of diegetic objects.

We present three prototypes that aim to elicit historical and experiential qualities of 16th century prayer-nuts through narrative design and sensory interactions. Our goal is to enhance the presentation of cultural artifacts that must be presented behind glass to ensure their conservation. We aim to provide visitors with opportunities to form personalized connections with the past through historical, sensory, and embodied information that is otherwise unavailable. We use narrative design as a strategy to conceptualize and ground an experience that considers the contexts of users, their interactions, and the space in which the interactions occur. Together, our prototypes create an experience that is embodied, visual, aural, tactile, and olfactory. We present a brief review of related work, descriptions of the prototypes, our design rationale, and the results of our user study.

This paper presents a preliminary framework to inform the analysis and design of tangible narratives. Researchers and designers have been using tangible user interfaces (TUIs) for storytelling over the past two decades, but to date no comprehensive analysis of these systems exists. We argue that storytelling systems that use digitally-enhanced physical objects form a unique medium with identifiable narrative characteristics. Our framework isolates these characteristics and focuses on the user's perspective to identify commonalities between existing systems, as well as gaps that can be addressed by new systems. We find that the majority of systems in our sample require the user to perform exploratory actions from an external narrative position. We note that systems that cast the user in other interactive roles are rare but technologically feasible, suggesting that there are many underexplored possibilities for tangible storytelling.

This paper describes the research and design of three tangible and embodied prototypes that aim to enable users to meaningfully engage with an artifact's historical context and use. Together, these prototypes engage users in a cultural heritage experience that is sensorially embodied through a 'multimodal' ensemble of visual, aural, tactile, and olfactory interactions. A preliminary user test suggests that future work on multisensory interaction should focus on developing accessible design principles and considerations that support a sensorially embodied and tangible understanding of historical artifacts. We suggest that multisensory interactions present significant opportunities for interactive exhibits to expand our access to cultural history and its artifacts.

Museums are exploring new ways of using emerging digital technologies to enhance the visitor experience. In this context, our research focuses on designing, developing and studying interactions for museum exhibits that introduce cultural concepts in ways that are tangible and embodied. We introduce here a tangible tabletop installation piece that was designed for a museum exhibition contrasting Western and African notions of mapping history and place. Inspired by the Lukasa board, a mnemonic device used by the Luba peoples in Central Africa, the tabletop piece enables visitors to learn and understand symbolic and nonlinguistic mapping concepts that are central to the Lukasa by creating and sharing stories with each other. In this paper we share our design process, a user study focusing on children and learning, and design implications on how digital and tangible interaction technologies can be used for cultural learning in museum exhibits.