A comparative study of navigation interfaces in virtual reality environments: A mixed-method approach

Recently, motion-based navigation interfaces have been widely utilized in virtual reality (VR) environments. However, improper navigation interfaces can negatively impact the VR experience, and because different interfaces have different characteristics, the navigation experience may vary. Although comparative studies have been conducted with various interfaces, information obtained by focusing on qualitative evaluation was limited. Thus, this study explores the effects from three navigation interfaces (walking-in-place (WIP), joystick, and teleportation) on user performance, sense of presence, workload, usability, and motion sickness through a mixed-method design. Twenty-one participants were asked to perform a navigation task using selected navigation interfaces. The results indicated different advantages and disadvantages in the navigation interfaces for each evaluation metric. In particular, it was found that more research on user safety is required for the WIP interface. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the development of guidelines for applying navigation interfaces to specific VR environments.