A STUDY OF DERIVING USABILITY EVALUATION FACTORS ON VIRTUAL REALITY CONTENTS

Abstract

This study aims to derive the factors for evaluating usability of virtual reality (VR) contents. As we are living in the era of 4th industrial revolution, the technology is developing at a rapid pace. In connection with this change, the VR technology became a hot topic in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) field in recent days. It gives us unconventional experiences which we have not experienced before. In this regard, many global companies are investigating on developing the VR technology. Meanwhile, there are many studies which seek for improvements for VR usability. The preceding studies suggest various ways of evaluating VR usability. By this reason, we intend to simplify the evaluation factors of VR usability. Thus the purpose of this study is to derive the usability evaluation factors for VR contents from the preceding researches so as to utilize on further developments of evaluating VR usability. The method of the study is as follows. First, we narrowed the research scope by excluding studies that have low relations to usability analysis. Second, we synthesized the usability evaluation factors and grouped them by their characteristics. Some minor factors have been discarded according to their importance. Third, the remaining ones are incorporated into several factors, according to their similar characteristics. As a result, we could unite and simplify the usability evaluation factors for VR usability. The factors are simplicity, convenience, and flexibility. The new factors are expected to be applied in actual in the following researches for further developments of VR usability. This study can be considered as a transitional procedure for further researches of improving VR usability. It is expected that this study would contribute to provide general evaluation factors of VR usability. Additionally, it will serve as a basic reference data for further studies improving VR contents’ usability.