BroomBroom! Evaluation of Leaning and Controller-based Locomotion for Flying in Virtual Reality
Hedlund, Martin and Müller, Florian and Schmitz, Martin and Bogdan, Cristian and Rey, Remy and Ghavamian, Pooria and Tobin, Deirdre and Matviienko, Andrii
Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR) locomotion methods are mainly ground-based, room-scale, or discrete, making them ill-suited for flying experiences. Although leaning- and controller-based techniques are promising for flying in VR, we lack empirical evidence of their advantages. We compared combinations of leaning- and controller-based methods for steering and velocity in a user study (N = 24) using a broom metaphor to integrate these methods into an understandable locomotion reference. The steering methods were: 1) controller-pointing (CP) and 2) headset-leaning (HL); and for velocity control: 1) controller linear displacement (CLD) and 2) headset linear displacement (HLD). Results indicate that HL increase presence compared to CP. However, combining HL with CLD worsens coin collection rate, completion time, mental load, control factor ratings, and enjoyment. In contrast, HLD worked well when paired with either steering method. CP-CLD led to the highest coin collection rate and lowest mental load. All methods had comparable feelings of flying.
@inproceedings{hedlundBroomBroomEvaluationLeaning2025,title={{{BroomBroom}}! {{Evaluation}} of {{Leaning}} and {{Controller-based Locomotion}} for {{Flying}} in {{Virtual Reality}}},booktitle={Proceedings of the 2025 31st {{ACM Symposium}} on {{Virtual Reality Software}} and {{Technology}}},author={Hedlund, Martin and M{\"u}ller, Florian and Schmitz, Martin and Bogdan, Cristian and Rey, Remy and Ghavamian, Pooria and Tobin, Deirdre and Matviienko, Andrii},year={2025},month=dec,series={{{VRST}} '25},pages={1--12},publisher={Association for Computing Machinery},address={New York, NY, USA},doi={10.1145/3756884.3766017},urldate={2025-12-10},isbn={979-8-4007-2118-2},}
