Second author. Co-authors: Jarrod Knibbe, Mathias Petræus, and Kasper Hornbæk.

Published at CHI 2018. 🏆 Best paper honorable mention award (top 5% of papers).

In this project, we explore the moment of exit from virtual reality, when you transition from the virtual to the physical. It is poorly understood in prior research. Using explication interviews on users who have transitioned out of four distinct types of VR experiences, we identify five components of the moment of exit. This paves the way for the moment of exit to be treated as a design variable in future VR applications.

This project is Jarrod’s brain child, and he conducted the study as well. Alongside Mathias, I helped design and implement the VR conditions, with Kasper providing guidance and aid in the interview analysis.

This was an enjoyable project to work on. The VR development was interesting, as we created a 1:1 replica virtual model of the lab in which the study took place, and calibrated the VR environment to overlap completely with the physical environment. The end result was a mixed reality environment where you could reach out in the VR version of the lab and physically touch any surface you saw, and used it to create some mind-blowing experiences, with a particular highlight being the redirected walking algorithm used in one of the conditions. Moreover, Mathias and Jarrod were just excellent partners in crime for the hands-on development of the study setup.