Are game design and user research guidelines specific to virtual reality effective in creating a more optimal player experience? Yes, VR PLAY

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) presents new usability, human-computer interaction, and playability challenges for developers, user-experience researchers, and designers. In addition to facing the traditional challenges, developers and researchers of VR games and VR experiences must contend with issues of physicality (including physical activity and physical discomfort), spatiality, and new or intensified physiological, psychological, and social considerations. However, many existing resources intended to help designers and game-user researchers work through usability and playability issues do not address these VR-specific challenges. This paper introduces the Virtual Reality PLAY (VR PLAY) guidelines, a set of guidelines intended to help developers, designers, and user researchers create more usable and playable VR games and experiences by optimizing the user and player experience for virtual reality.