User Interface Design for Virtual Reality: A Research Tool for Tracking Navigation

In the rapidly developing area of User Interface Design (UID), the existing knowledge and understanding of UID serves as a basis for further research and study of factors affecting users as they interact with interfaces that utilize the technology of multimedia, virtual reality and intelligent agents. Navigation is one of the factors that is being investigated to help designers develop user interfaces that are effective and efficient for the users. This paper describes a web-based navigation tool developed to support research into factors that affect navigational decisions in a virtual reality environment. The tool, VR Navigation Research Tool (VRNRT), allows the design and exploration of three-dimensional worlds and provides for navigational tracking. When using VRNRT, the structure of the virtual worlds is confined to 3D mazes. VRNRT enables researchers to customize experiments that allow for testing a subject’s navigational and spatial behavior.