Design and evaluation of menu systems for immersive virtual environments

Interfaces for system control tasks in virtual environments (VEs) have not been extensively studied. The paper focuses on various types of menu systems to be used in such environments. We describe the design of the TULIP menu, a menu system using Pinch Gloves^TM, and compare it to two common alternatives: floating menus and pen and tablet menus. These three menus were compared in an empirical evaluation. The pen and tablet menu was found to be significantly faster, while users had a preference for TULIP. Subjective discomfort levels were also higher with the floating menus and pen and tablet.