Comparing Gaze-based and Manual Interaction in a Fast-paced Gaming Task in Virtual Reality

The idea of using gaze as an interaction modality has been put forward by the famous work of Bolt in 1981. In virtual reality (VR), gaze has been used for several means since then: view-dependent optimization of rendering, intelligent information visualization, reference communication in distributed telecommunication settings and object selection. Our own research aims at improving gaze-based interaction methods in general. In this paper, gaze-based interaction is examined in a fast-paced selection task to identify current usability problems of gaze-based interaction and to develop best practices. To this end, an immersive Asteroids-like shooter called Eyesteroids was developed to support a study comparing manual and gaze-based interaction methods. Criteria for the evaluation were interaction performance and user immersion. The results indicate that while both modalities (hand and gaze) work well for the task, manual interaction is easier to use and often more accurate than the implemented gaze-based methods. The reasons are discussed and the best practices as well as options for further improvements of gaze-based interaction methods are presented.