How do we evaluate experiences in immersive environments? Despite decades of research in immersive technologies such as virtual reality, the field remains fragmented. Studies rely on overlapping constructs, heterogeneous instruments, and little agreement on what counts as immersive experience. To better understand this landscape, we conducted a bottom-up scoping review of 375 papers published in ACM CHI, UIST, VRST, SUI, IEEE VR, ISMAR, and TVCG. Our analysis reveals that evaluation practices are often domain- and purpose-specific, shaped more by local choices than by shared standards. Yet this diversity also points to new directions. Instead of multiplying instruments, researchers benefit from integrating and refining them into smarter measures. Rather than focusing only on system outputs, evaluations must center the user’s lived experience. Computational modeling offers opportunities to bridge signals across methods, but lasting progress requires open and sustainable evaluation practices that support comparability and reuse. Ultimately, our contribution is to map current practices and outline a forward-looking agenda for immersive experience research.

Advances in emerging technologies, such as on-body mechanical actuators and electrical muscle stimulation, have allowed computers to take control over our bodies. This presents opportunities as well as challenges, raising fundamental questions about agency and the role of our bodies when interacting with technology. To advance this research field as a whole, we brought together expert perspectives in a week-long seminar to articulate the grand challenges that should be tackled when it comes to the design of computers’ control over our bodies. These grand challenges span technical, design, user, and ethical aspects. By articulating these grand challenges, we aim to begin initiating a research agenda that positions bodily control not only as a technical feature but as a central, experiential, and ethical concern for future human–computer interaction endeavors.

Virtual locomotion remains a challenge in VR, especially in space-limited environments where room-scale walking is impractical. We present LocoScooter, a low-cost, deployable locomotion interface combining foot-sliding on a compact treadmill with handlebar steering inspired by scooter riding. Built from commodity hardware, it supports embodied navigation through familiar, physically engaging movement. In a within-subject study $(N = 14)$, LocoScooter significantly improved immersion, enjoyment, and bodily involvement over joystick navigation, while maintaining comparable efficiency and usability. Despite higher physical demand, users did not report increased fatigue, suggesting familiar movements can enrich VR navigation.

As virtual reality (VR) continues to evolve, traditional input methods such as handheld controllers and gesture systems often face challenges with precision, social accessibility, and user fatigue. These limitations motivate the exploration of microgestures, which promise more subtle, ergonomic, and device-free interactions. We introduce microGEXT, a lightweight microgesture-based system designed for text editing in VR without external sensors, which utilizes small, subtle hand movements to reduce physical strain compared to standard gestures. We evaluated microGEXT in three user studies. In Study 1 ($N=20$N=20), microGEXT reduced overall edit time and fatigue compared to a ray-casting + pinch menu baseline, the default text editing approach in commercial VR systems. Study 2 ($N=20$N=20) found that microGEXT performed well in short text selection tasks but was slower for longer text ranges. In Study 3 ($N=10$N=10), participants found microGEXT intuitive for open-ended information-gathering tasks. Across all studies, microGEXT demonstrated enhanced user experience and reduced physical effort, offering a promising alternative to traditional VR text editing techniques.

Cultural heritage, a testament to human history and civilization, has gained increasing recognition for its significance in preservation and dissemination. The integration of immersive technologies has transformed how cultural heritage is presented, enabling audiences to engage with it in more vivid, intuitive, and interactive ways. However, the adoption of these technologies also brings a range of challenges and potential risks. This paper presents a systematic review, with an in-depth analysis of 177 selected papers. We comprehensively examine and categorize current applications, technological approaches, and user devices in immersive cultural heritage presentations, while also highlighting the associated risks and challenges. Furthermore, we identify areas for future research in the immersive presentation of cultural heritage. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive reference for researchers and practitioners, enhancing understanding of the technological applications, risks, and challenges in this field, and encouraging further innovation and development.

Window management in virtual reality (VR) remains a challenging task due to the spatial complexity and physical demands of current interaction methods. We introduce Handows, a palm-based interface that enables direct manipulation of spatial windows through familiar smartphone-inspired gestures on the user's non-dominant hand. Combining ergonomic layout design with body-centric input and passive haptics, Handows supports four core operations: window selection, closure, positioning, and scaling. We evaluate Handows in a user study (N = 15) against two common VR techniques (virtual hand and controller) across four core window operations. Results show that Handows significantly reduces physical effort and head movement while improving task efficiency and interaction precision. A follow-up case study (N = 8) demonstrates Handows' usability in realistic multitasking scenarios, highlighting user-adapted workflows and spontaneous layout strategies. Our findings also suggest the potential of embedding mobile-inspired metaphors into proprioceptive body-centric interfaces to support low-effort and spatially coherent interaction in VR.

The preservation of cultural heritage, as mandated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is integral to sustainable urban development. This paper focuses on the Dragon Boat Festival, a prominent event in Chinese cultural heritage, and proposes leveraging Virtual Reality (VR), to enhance its preservation and accessibility. Traditionally, participation in the festival's dragon boat races was limited to elite athletes, excluding broader demographics. Our proposed solution, named MetaDragonBoat, enables virtual participation in dragon boat racing, offering immersive experiences that replicate physical exertion through a cultural journey. Thus, we build a digital twin of a university campus located in a region with a rich dragon boat racing tradition. Coupled with three paddling techniques that are enabled by either commercial controllers or physical paddle controllers with haptic feedback, diversified users can engage in realistic rowing experiences. Our results demonstrate that by integrating resistance into the paddle controls, users could simulate the physical effort of dragon boat racing, promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation of this cultural heritage.

Virtual reality (VR) environments have greatly expanded opportunities for immersive exploration, yet physically navigating these digital spaces remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we present the conceptual framework of NAVIS (Navigating Virtual Spaces with Immersive Scooters), a novel system that utilizes a scooter-based interface to enhance both navigation and interaction within virtual environments. NAVIS combines real-time physical mobility, haptic feedback, and CAVE-like (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) technology to create a realistic sense of travel and movement, improving both spatial awareness and the overall immersive experience. By offering a more natural and physically engaging method of exploration, NAVIS addresses key limitations found in traditional VR locomotion techniques, such as teleportation or joystick control, which can detract from immersion and realism. This approach highlights the potential of combining physical movement with virtual environments to provide a more intuitive and enjoyable experience for users, opening up new possibilities for applications in gaming, education, and beyond.

The theory of swarm control shows promise for controlling multiple objects, however, scalability is hindered by cost constraints, such as hardware and infrastructure. Virtual Reality (VR) can overcome these limitations, but research on swarm interaction in VR is limited. This paper introduces a novel swarm manipulation technique and compares it with two baseline techniques: Virtual Hand and Controller (ray-casting). We evaluated these techniques in a user study ( N = 12) in three tasks (selection, rotation, and resizing) across five conditions. Our results indicate that swarm manipulation yielded superior performance, with significantly faster speeds in most conditions across the three tasks. It notably reduced resizing size deviations but introduced a trade-off between speed and accuracy in the rotation task. Additionally, we conducted a follow-up user study ( N = 6) using swarm manipulation in two complex VR scenarios and obtained insights through semi-structured interviews, shedding light on optimized swarm control mechanisms and perceptual changes induced by this interaction paradigm. These results demonstrate the potential of the swarm manipulation technique to enhance the usability and user experience in VR compared to conventional manipulation techniques. In future studies, we aim to understand and improve swarm interaction via internal swarm particle cooperation. • We define swarm manipulation in VR and evaluate its usability and utility in two user studies. • Study 1 compares swarm manipulation to hand and controller techniques across five conditions. • Study 2 explores swarm manipulation in complex scenarios with detailed user feedback. • We analyze strengths and limitations of swarm manipulation in usability and workload. • We provide design insights for integrating swarm manipulation into VR applications.

On-body menus present a novel interaction paradigm within Virtual Reality (VR) environments by embedding virtual interfaces directly onto the user’s body. Unlike traditional screen-based interfaces, on-body menus enable users to interact with virtual options or icons visually attached to their physical form. In this paper, We investigated the impact of the creation process on the effectiveness of on-body menus, comparing first-person, third-person, and mirror perspectives. Our first study ( N = 12) revealed that the mirror perspective led to faster creation times and more accurate recall compared to the other two perspectives. To further explore user preferences, we conducted a second study ( N = 18) utilizing a VR system with integrated body tracking. By combining distributions of icons from both studies ( N = 30), we confirmed significant preferences in on-body menu placement based on icon category ( e.g. , Social Media icons were consistently placed on forearms). We also discovered associations between categories, such as Leisure and Social Media icons frequently co-occurring. Our findings highlight the importance of the creation process, uncover user preferences for on-body menu organization, and provide insights to guide the development of intuitive and effective on-body interactions within virtual environments.

Most digital bodily games focus on the body as they use movement as input. However, they also draw the player’s focus away from the body as the output occurs on visual displays, creating a divide between the physical body and the virtual world. We propose a novel approach – the "Body as a Play Material" – where a player uses their body as both input and output to unify the physical body and the virtual world. To showcase this approach, we designed three games where a player uses one of their hands (input) to play against the other hand (output) by loaning control over its movements to an Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) system. We conducted a thematic analysis on the data obtained from a field study with 12 participants to articulate four player experience themes. We discuss our results about how participants appreciated the engagement with the variety of bodily movements for play and the ambiguity of using their body as a play material. Ultimately, our work aims to unify the physical body and the virtual world.

Spectating digital games can be exciting. However, due to its vicarious nature, spectators often wish to engage in the gameplay beyond just watching and cheering. To blur the boundaries between spectators and players, we propose a novel approach called "Fused Spectatorship", where spectators watch their hands play games by loaning bodily control to a computational Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) system. To showcase this concept, we designed three games where spectators loan control over both their hands to the EMS system and watch them play these competitive and collaborative games. A study with 12 participants suggested that participants could not distinguish if they were watching their hands play, or if they were playing the games themselves. We used our results to articulate four spectator experience themes and four fused spectator types, the behaviours they elicited and offer one design consideration to support each of these behaviours. We also discuss the ethical design considerations of our approach to help game designers create future fused spectatorship experiences.

Human–computer integration is an HCI trend in which computational machines can have agency, i.e., take control. Our work focuses on a particular form of integration in which the user and the computational machine share agency over the user's body, that is, can simultaneously (in contrast to a traditional turn-taking approach) control the user's body. The result is a user experience where the agency of the user and the computational machine is so intertwined that it is often no more discernable who contributed what to what extent; we call this “intertwined integration”. Due to the recency of advanced technologies enabling intertwined integration systems, we find that little understanding and documented design knowledge exist. To begin constructing such an understanding, we use three case studies to propose two key dimensions (“awareness of machine's agency” and “alignment of machine's agency”) to articulate a design space for intertwined integration systems. We differentiate four roles that computational machines can assume in this design space (angel, butler, influencer, and adversary). Based on our craft knowledge gained through designing such intertwined integration systems, we discuss strategies to help designers create future systems. Ultimately, we aim at advancing the HCI field's emerging understanding of sharing agency.

Interest in combining interactive play and the human body, using “bodily play” systems, is increasing. While these systems primarily prioritize a player's control over their bodily actions, we see intriguing possibilities in the pursuit of “limited control over the body” as an intriguing design resource for bodily play systems. In this paper, we use three of our bodily play systems to illustrate how designers can engage with limited control over the body by varying the player's degree of indirect control (for instance, via other bodily activity and external triggers). We also propose four strategies for employing limited control over the body: Exploration, Reflection, Learning and Embracement. We hope our own work and the strategies developed from it will assist designers to employ limited control over the body, ultimately helping people benefit from engaging their bodies through play.

Text entry is a common activity in virtual reality (VR) systems. There is a limited number of available hands-free techniques, which allow users to carry out text entry when users’ hands are busy such as holding items or hand-based devices are not available. The most used hands-free text entry technique is DwellType, where a user selects a letter by dwelling over it for a specific period. However, its performance is limited due to the fixed dwell time for each character selection. In this paper, we explore two other hands-free text entry mechanisms in VR: BlinkType and NeckType, which leverage users’ eye blinks and neck’s forward and backward movements to select letters. With a user study, we compare the performance of the two techniques with DwellType. Results show that users can achieve an average text entry rate of 13.47, 11.18 and 11.65 words per minute with BlinkType, NeckType, and DwellType, respectively. Users’ subjective feedback shows BlinkType as the preferred technique for text entry in VR.

Mid-air hand interaction has long been proposed as a ‘natural’ input method for Augmented Reality (AR) systems. Current AR Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) have a limited area for hand-based interactions. Because of this, users may easily move their hand(s) outside this tracked area during interaction, especially in dynamic tasks (e.g., when translating an object). Compared to common midair interaction issues, such as gesture recognition, arm/hand fatigue, and unnatural ways of interacting with virtual objects (e.g., selecting a distant object), boundary awareness issues in AR devices have received little attention. In this research, we explore visual techniques for boundary awareness in AR HMDs, focusing on object translation tasks. Through a systematic formative study, we first identify the challenges that users might face when interacting with AR HMDs without any boundary awareness information (i.e., how current systems work). Based on the findings, we then propose four methods (i.e., static surfaces, dynamic surface(s), static coordinated lines, and dynamic coordinate line(s)) and evaluate them against the benchmark (i.e., baseline condition without boundary awareness) to make users aware of the tracked interaction area. Our results show that visual methods for boundary awareness can help with dynamic mid-air hand interactions in AR HMDs, but their effectiveness and application are user-dependent.