Repository logo
 

ReconViguRation: Reconfiguring Physical Keyboards in Virtual Reality.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Schneider, Daniel 
Otte, Alexander 
Gesslein, Travis 
Gagel, Philipp 
Kuth, Bastian 

Abstract

Physical keyboards are common peripherals for personal computers and are efficient standard text entry devices. Recent research has investigated how physical keyboards can be used in immersive head-mounted display-based Virtual Reality (VR). So far, the physical layout of keyboards has typically been transplanted into VR for replicating typing experiences in a standard desktop environment. In this paper, we explore how to fully leverage the immersiveness of VR to change the input and output characteristics of physical keyboard interaction within a VR environment. This allows individual physical keys to be reconfigured to the same or different actions and visual output to be distributed in various ways across the VR representation of the keyboard. We explore a set of input and output mappings for reconfiguring the virtual presentation of physical keyboards and probe the resulting design space by specifically designing, implementing and evaluating nine VR-relevant applications: emojis, languages and special characters, application shortcuts, virtual text processing macros, a window manager, a photo browser, a whack-a-mole game, secure password entry and a virtual touch bar. We investigate the feasibility of the applications in a user study with 20 participants and find that, among other things, they are usable in VR. We discuss the limitations and possibilities of remapping the input and output characteristics of physical keyboards in VR based on empirical findings and analysis and suggest future research directions in this area.

Description

Keywords

Virtual Reality, Text Entry, Physical Keyboards

Journal Title

IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1077-2626
1941-0506

Volume Title

25

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Rights

All rights reserved