Virtual reality-based surgical simulation training usability heuristics

Abstract

In recent years, a trend to develop and validate more specialized heuristics for specific technologies or applied computing domains has been observed. Usability heuristics are lightweight inspection methods that can be applied to identify usability problems, requiring less time and human resources. Many usability heuristics have been proposed for evaluating traditional user interfaces. However, due to the virtual reality environment's distinctive characteristics, traditional heuristics do not effectively fit such systems' nature. Virtual reality is beneficial to many applications, especially in surgical training with safety-critical procedures that pose a relatively high risk for patients. Thus, there is a need for a specific set of surgical simulation heuristics based on virtual reality, since the interaction style is markedly different from direct manipulation of graphical user interface. In this paper, we followed a six-stage methodology in order to develop and validate a usability heuristics surgical simulation checklist. The checklist includes 27 checklist items grouped into 14 heuristics. Insights from the heuristic reviews for virtual reality medical simulation will be discussed.