Increasing user appreciation of spherical videos by finger touch interaction

Abstract

In this manuscript, we present a system to appreciate spherical videos on mobile devices by using an interface that enables users to play back videos by finger touch interaction. In conventional Virtual Reality (VR) media that use interfaces such as a playback button and a seek bar for videos, users stop watching the videos before viewing the entire content. Previous systems could not effectively attract user interest in content because they are passive media that requires less interaction. In our proposed system, users can touch and manipulate virtual objects interactively, thus increasing user appreciation and achieving a significant VR experience. We evaluated our proposed interface by conducting a demonstrative experiment at a real exhibition. The results showed that with our proposed interface, users scrolled more video frames than with conventional interfaces. In conventional interface systems, many users stopped their experience in the middle of playback before the video ended, and 37 % of the users played the video to the end. However, with our proposed interface, 71 % of the users watched the entire video.