Evaluation of Hand Collision in Mixed Reality

Sammanfattning

Background. With the growing prospects of extended realities (XR), new use casesand experiences are constantly being developed. Especially with the introduction ofmixed reality (MR), allowing for a more seamless blend of the physical and digitalspace, it provides great opportunities in many fields such as education and trainingwhere dangerous procedures can be practiced safely. However, to make these experi-ences as effective and educational as possible, there is a need to make the experiencesrealistic. Objectives. One important aspect of creating realistic experiences is believablecollision between the user’s physical hand and the digital objects. This study specif-ically takes aim at this aspect. Trying to find how the performance difference anduser experience (UX) is affected by the addition of collision around the user’s handsin an MR environment. In order to help guide the way to get the answers to thesequestions, a set of objectives has been formulated. These objectives are; finding andimplementing a hand collision method, designing and performing the user study, andfinally finding and utilizing appropriate methods for analyzing the collected data. Methods. To get a better understanding of the UX and performance of using handcollision, a user study was created where the participants had to complete a seriesof tasks, with and without collision around their hands. For each task, answering aquestionnaire about their experience. Once the data have been collected, it will beanalyzed with the help of the SUS scoring system and statistical tests. Results. The study had 12 participants. With and without hand collision receivedan average SUS score of 62,5 and 69,2 respectively. The results show that the methodusing no collision performed better in terms of time to complete the task. However,hand collision performed better with fewer grabs used. No statistically significantdifference was detected between having or not having hand collision in terms of in-tuitiveness and realism. However, participants were observed to intuitively use thehand collision to their advantage. Conclusions. In conclusion, the participants did not perform better with handcollision, however, did indicate some level of increased intuition and realism. Thenegative aspects of the hand collision are believed to be attributed to the methodused to implement it, and potential in the area exists for further improvements andresearch.