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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Evaluating the user experience of omnidirectional VR walking simulators

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Abstract Omnidirectional treadmills (ODTs) have been traditionally proposed as a promising solution for users’ navigation in large-scale virtual environments. These mechanical devices enable users to perform locomotive motion with 360-deg freedom, while keeping their position fixed in the physical world. However, most locomotion approaches based on omnidirectional treadmills have presented either high acquisition or maintenance costs, being the capabilities of the general public, or a limited reliability. In this paper, we present a comparative usability and acceptance study with real users evaluating the two most common approaches for the development of this type of Virtual Reality (VR) walking simulators, whether flat-based or bowl-based omnidirectional treadmills. The results of our study indicate that both design alternatives accomplish a similar performance and can be considered as personal, low-cost walking simulators for navigation in virtual environments. Nevertheless, when compared between themselves, the users preferred the bowl-based omnidirectional VR treadmill when following three different selection criteria: overall preference, recommendation, and usefulness. Last, a correlation analysis showed statically significant correspondences among the parameters concerning to the simulation presence, which in turn, are related to the global scores and responses given by the participants of the Virtual Reality experiment.