User Experience of Virtual-Reality Interactive Interfaces: A Comparison between Hand Gesture Recognition and Joystick Control for XRSPACE MANOVA

This research intends to understand whether users would adopt the interactive interface of hand gesture recognition for XRSPACE MANOVA in the virtual-reality environment. Different from the traditional joystick control and external sensors, XRSPACE MANOVA’s hand gesture recognition relies on cameras built into the head-mount display to detect users’ hand gestures and interact with the system to provide a more life-like immersive experience. To better understand if users would accept this hand gesture recognition, the current experiment compares users’ experiences with hand gesture recognition and joystick control for XRSPACE MANOVA while controlling for the effects of gender, college major, and the completion time. The results suggest that users of hand gesture recognition have better perceptions of enjoyment, satisfaction, and confirmation, which means that they have a relatively fun and satisfying experience and that their expectations of the system/technology confirm their actual usage. Based on the parametric statistical analyses, user assessments show that perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, attitude, and perception of internal control suggest that, in terms of operating performance, users are more accepting of the traditional joystick control. When considering the length of usage time, this study finds that, when hand gesture recognition is used for a relatively longer time, users’ subjective evaluations of internal control and behavioral intention to use are reduced. This study has, therefore, identified potential issues with hand gesture recognition for XRSPACE MANOVA and discussed how to improve this interactive interface. It is hoped that users of hand gesture recognition will obtain the same level of operating experience as if they were using the traditional joystick control.