INFO
Abstract
User Experience of navigation in an immersive webXR Book
One of the key challenges with the immersive webXR experience for readers of the book "Reality Media" was the user's perception and usability of the new form of navigation, hyperspatial navigation, which bridges legacy 2D content and fully immersive 3D experiences for VR headsets users.

In my role, I was responsible for designing, testing, and refining content of the project, as well as collaborating closely with cross-functional teams of designers, researchers, and developers.
Timeline
May 2022 - Present
Role
User researcher, designer, developer
methods
Playtesting, Semi-structured Interview
tools
Web-dev Tools, Maya, Blender, Figma
collaborators
3+
OVERVIEW
Problem

While the fusion of 3D space and hypertext systems seems promising, there could be potential challenges such as disorientation and cognitive overload. Understanding the impact of these shifts on user perception and navigation within the transmodal information space is imperative.

Research Question

How does the hyperspatial navigation influence the user's spatial perception of the VR information system?

Study Design

RealityMedia: a VR narrative space on webXR

In RealityMedia, the information spaces are the digital remediation of a museum. We use this as a testbed to explore the new forms of navigation.

Examine user's mental models and spatial perception

We leverage mental models to analyze how users perceive the system, integrating the findings into optimizing hyperspatial navigation in VR.

USER TESTING

We recruited 20 university students1 to conduct an empirical study of mixed methods and proceeded in two phases:
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1) Task-driven VR experience with Meta Quest 2 headsets (30 min) (along with think aloud protocol, user logging and video recordings of the session for later recollection)

2) Post-experiment activity (60 min) using a subjective questionnaire and conducting semi-structured interview2 on the following themes:

  • Overall evaluation of system usability and user experience
  • User’s perception of the information spaces in VR
  • Description of their mental models for hyperspatial navigation

Affinity Diagram


We collected and analyzed user-generated drawings, with the primary goal being the identification and analysis of key mental models.

A qualitative coding scheme was developed using thematic analysis and open coding method.

Findings

The system was easy to use in terms of navigation and functions3, with all participants sensing the connection between the 3D immersive and the 2D web information spaces. Hyperspatial navigation from 2D to 3D space was more anticipated than the other way around.

Most participants described hyperspatial navigation as an improvement over their previous VR experience because it supported their information acquisition.




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Three distinct themes
We identified distinct themes in the users’ perception of the relationship between the 2D and 3D spaces in relation to their navigational performance and mental shift:
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2D and 3D

Everything in 2D

Everything is 3D:
2D websites as extended branches of the 3D spaces.  2D somewhat downgraded the experience.
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Our findings show that many participants, particularly those with mental models in unified dimensions (2D in 3D or 3D in 2D), emphasized the need for a better flow in VR and that hyperspatial navigation should be a seamless transition.

NEXT STEPS
Our study captured issues concerning the inconsistent set of rules applied to 2D and 3D spaces: 
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  • As people typically use mouse to control the pointer, icons must be designed large enough to make good targets on the web
  • However, within the VR space, the visibility issue is coupled with the pointer precision and accuracy issues
  • Usability issues of disorientation and cognitive overload in hypertexualized spaces
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    Index
    1. Semi-structured Interview for 20 minutes asking the following questions
    2. Especially being able to hear the ocean waves and see flying birds. They reported the overall exploration part as a visually pleasing and fun experience and felt a sense of presence while playing the game.
    3. We designed and developed a first-person perspective VR game to promote climate change awareness. Oblivion is developed using C# on the Unity3D platform (version 2021.3.5f1) with the Oculus Integration SDK (41.0) and runs on Oculus Quest 2.
    Jisu park @ 2025