A study on the impact of spatial frames of reference on human performance in virtual reality user interfaces

The design of virtual reality user interfaces (VRUI) is still an open field of research and development. One category of VRUI is the 3D floating menus that can be manipulated by users in free space. These menus can contain various controls such as buttons, sliders, and text. This article presents an experimental study that aims at testing the impact of five spatial frames of reference on human performance in VRUI. 15 subjects participated in the study. Wearing a head-mounted display and tracking hardware, they were asked to move a slider on a floating menu in a 3D virtual space. Main results show that the frame of reference has a significant impact on the task execution time and on the user preference.