How Observers Perceive Teleport Visualizations in Virtual Environments

Abstract

Multi-user VR applications have great potential to foster remote collaboration and improve or replace classical training and education. An important aspect of such applications is how participants move through the virtual environments. One of the most popular VR locomotion methods is the standard teleportation metaphor, as it is quick, easy to use and implement, and safe regarding cybersickness. However, it can be confusing to the other, observing, participants in a multi-user session and, therefore, reduce their presence. The reason for this is the discontinuity of the process, and, therefore, the lack of motion cues. As of yet, the question of how this teleport metaphor could be suitably visualized for observers has not received very much attention. Therefore, we implemented several continuous and discontinuous 3D visualizations for the teleport metaphor and conducted a user study for evaluation. Specifically, we investigated them regarding confusion, spatial awareness, and spatial and social presence. Regarding presence, we did find significant advantages for one of the visualizations. Moreover, some visualizations significantly reduced confusion. Furthermore, multiple continuous visualizations ranked significantly higher regarding spatial awareness than the discontinuous ones. This finding is also backed up by the users' tracking data we collected during the experiments. Lastly, the classic teleport metaphor was perceived as less clear and rather unpopular compared with our visualizations.