| dc.description.abstract | This thesis investigates different factors that influence readability in virtual reality experienced through a head-mounted display. There are three main factor groups highlighted by the research questions: human, software and hardware factors. An experiment was created and conducted twice using two different virtual reality headsets (HTC Vive and Pimax 5k plus). The participants in both experiments (N=10 and N=14) mainly possessed a high level of experience using virtual reality headsets. The experiment consisted of reading tasks in virtual reality and a questionnaire regarding demographics, simulation sickness and questions regarding the experience.
The experiment had participants find both comfortable and minimum character sizes and preferred line widths for reading concerning two different approaches to projecting text in the virtual environment: flat and curved. Whether the text was flat or curved made little difference in terms of character size.
Line widths observed for the flat text showed similar results to the reviewed literature, but the curved text allowed for significantly more characters per line. In this study, curved text allowed for line widths equivalent of 155\% (HTC Vive) to 167\% (Pimax 5k Plus) more characters per line compared to the flat projection of text.
Increased display qualities (resolution and field of view) seem to make smaller character sizes comfortable to read, seen by both the comfortable and minimum sizes chosen for the Pimax 5k plus compared to the HTC Vive. Differences in line width, however, are minimal between the headsets.
The questionnaire shows that overall participants slightly agree that the text qualities are sufficient using both headsets, but that there is room for improvement. Additionally, participants do not seem to be bothered by moving their head while reading through the head-mounted display. | |
