1. Virtual Reality: How Much Immersion Is Enough? Angela McCarthy CP5080, SP1 2010

2. Overview ►Paper Insights ►Authors ►Introduction ►Success Stories ►Immersion Benefits ►Demonstrating Benefits ►Results ►Future Work ►Metadata ►Conclusion

3. Paper Insights ►Published in July, 2007 ►Under IEEE Computer Society as a cover feature in Computer, Volume 40

4. Authors ►Doug A Bowman o Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech o Completed Ph. D., in the College of Computing and the GVU Center at Georgia Tech o 100+ publications o 1997-2009 ►Ryan P McMahan o Ph. D., Computer Science and Applications. Expected May 2010 at Virginia Tech o 4 Publications o 2006-2008

5. Introduction ►Small history of Virtual Reality (VR) ►Immersion, Virtual Environments (VE) ►Features o Head Mounted Displays o Multiscreen Stereoscopic Displays ►Looking at how much immersion is required for user experience

6. Success Stories ►Phobia Therapy o Public Speaking ►Military Training o Infantry Training in urban combat tactics ►Entertainment o DisneyQuest – placing visitors inside the game ►Success due to the reliance of the realistic experience o Requires high level of sensory fidelity Visual, Auditory and other sensory cues

7. Immersion’s Benefits ►Increased sense of presence o More realistic experience ►Depth Cues o Users exercise their built-in capacity for understanding stereopsis and motion parallax o Uses in scientific visualization, design review, and virtual prototyping. ►Traditional Approach: Immersion > Presence > Application Effetiveness ►Authors Approach: Immersion Components > Immersion Benefits > Application Effectiveness

8. Demonstrating Benefits ►Controlled empirical studies o Immersions effect on task performance E.g. Increasing display size/resolution to track time taken to complete a visual searching task o Comparing stereo to non-stereo o Head-tracking vs no head-tracking o Multiscreens vs single screens For each scenario, there were noticeable increases/decreases on users task performance

9. Results ►Positive effects of immersion on spatial thinking ►Found that some visualisations that are less complex may perform as well as more immersive ones ►Higher levels of immersion o Contributes to improved interaction task performance o Reduces information clutter ►Display size/resolution effects task completion time o High Resolution displays producing best results

10. Future Work ►Understanding various components of immersion o Measurable user performance o Understanding o Preference ►Two conflicting goals o VR to thrive/succeed due to benefits o Help others avoid costly situations where high immersion not necessary

11. Metadata ►Cover Feature for Computer, IEEE ►Language E.g. “If all that these technologies provide for the user are oohs and ahs and a unique user experience, it would be difficult to justify the expense and development complexity that immersive VR requires” ►Images ►Diagrams

12. Images appropriate for medium, helps reader visualise with text Diagrams and tables provide quick reference points, easy to read, straight to point

13. Metadata continued… ►Small number of references (13) o Some references examples of VR applications ►Acronyms/Abbreviations presented early as possible o Allows non-IT readers to read with ease ►Appearance

15. Conclusion ►Good balance of technical and general information (technical information set in yellow boxes separate from general text) ►Easy to read, keeps the reader engaged ►Makes good use of real-world applications to further engage readers ►Good structure/flow

16. Questions? Thanks for listening!