Interaction Fidelity: The Uncanny Valley of Virtual Reality Interactions

摘要

Interaction designers often strive to create more-realistic and natural interactions for virtual reality (VR) applications. However, due to hardware and system limitations, they often settle for semi-natural interaction techniques. Using the concept of interaction fidelity and the Framework for Interaction Fidelity Analysis (FIFA), we present several case studies that provide empirical evidence that semi-natural interactions are worse for user performance than low-fidelity interactions that do not resemble real-world actions and high-fidelity interactions that do. We discuss these case studies and how interaction fidelity generally acts as the uncanny valley of VR interactions in terms of user performance. We also consider different reasons for this phenomenon and conclude with a guideline to avoid designing semi-natural interaction techniques that lack similarities to established techniques or real-world actions.