ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Technologies for VR
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1586875
Embracing Differences in Virtual Reality: Inclusive User-Centered Design of Bimanual Interaction Techniques
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- 2University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
- 3University of Canterbury, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Virtual Reality (VR) applications often require two-handed interactions, which can pose accessibility challenges for users with missing limbs or limited mobility in the arms or hands. This paper investigates how to make bimanual input more accessible and inclusive using electromyography and motion tracking. Through an inclusive user-centered design approach, we developed three interaction techniques after interviewing a person with unilateral upper limb differences. To assess baseline metrics on the efficiency and usability of the three prototypes, a user study was conducted with 26 participants without upper limb differences. We found that those interaction methods can be as efficient as unimanual interactions, even without prior learning, showing the potential of electromyography and motion tracking for bimanual interaction in VR. In a second user study, feedback was gathered from four participants with unilateral upper limb impairments to refine the interaction techniques and identify accessibility barriers in the design. Results of the thematic analysis indicate that people with upper limb differences enjoyed the proposed bimanual interaction techniques, while they suggested improvements in ergonomics and system stability.
Keywords: virtual reality, user-centered design, universal design, upper limb differences, bimanual interaction, EMG, motion tracking
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hartfill, Hajahmadi, Schmidt, Marfia and Steinicke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Judith Hartfill, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.