Direct Interaction Word-Gesture Text Input in Virtual Reality

Authors
Florian Spiess, Philipp Weber, Heiko Schuldt
Type
In Proceedings
Date
2022/12
Appears in
Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality (AIVR 2022)
Location
held virtually
Abstract

As Virtual Reality (VR) devices become more affordable and experience a more widespread adoption, applications for this immersive technology become more diverse, increasingly also including text-based uses, such as messaging and text processing.  While text input methods for VR have existed for a long time, none have reached the ease-of-use or performance of conventional, physical keyboards. In the absence of physical keyboards, touch-screen devices have adopted word-gesture keyboards, that allow users to input text through smooth motions. In this work, we introduce a word-gesture keyboard for VR that uses direct interaction with a virtual keyboard, to allow a more direct transfer of hand motion. We present a preliminary evaluation with promising results, which suggest usability improvements over more well established methods of text input in VR.

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