Author: Luis Morales
Morales, Luis, 2021 What is the usability perception of a VR flight training system?, Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering
Terms of Use: This electronic version is (or will be) made publicly available by Flinders University in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. You may use this material for uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material and/or you believe that any material has been made available without permission of the copyright owner please contact copyright@flinders.edu.au with the details.
Human-Computer Interactions (HCIs) have been evolving from the early days of using the command line or low-level programming language to communicate with the device to the widespread usage of smartphones in today's world. Moreover, relatively novel technologies such as Virtual Reality hardware and software are emerging as the new trend of HCI. This research describes the process and techniques in which the project Virtual Reality Flight Training Experience (VRFTE) system was evaluated from a usability perspective. The findings in the literature contributed to defining a strategy of combining some of the most widely-used usability methodologies in desktop, web, mobile and serious game applications that are often used for usability testing within the VR industry. Due to the lack of a well-defined methodology aimed for VR products, the application of traditional heuristics evaluation, informal usability surveys and observation techniques are combined or adjusted to the requirements and nature of the system.
The results obtained from the usability testings and the analysis revealed that their previous experiences significantly influence the user perception of usability in VR and flight training scenarios. Thus, subjective results are required to be compared with the obtained data from the system logs, as well as the processed analysis of the feedback and reviews from the users. Overall, the perception of the VRFTE system is the positive spectrum, and the obtained feedback implies that some improvements and fixes of the interactions could increase the efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction of the system’s usage.
Keywords: Virtual Reality, Usability Evaluation, Flight Training, Sense of Presence, Serious Games, Game Development
Subject: Computer Science thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2021
School: College of Science and Engineering
Supervisor: Brett Wilkinson