The Effects of Hand Representation on Experience and Performance for 3D Interactions in Virtual Reality Games

In Virtual Reality (VR), natural 3D interactions are performed with hand representations – the visualizations and interactors used for manipulating objects. Hand representations in VR games range from abstract shapes, to graphical versions of input controllers, to realistic human-like hands. Hand representations have been shown to have an important effect on play experience and performance. However, previous work has only considered them for individual 3D interactions or an entire game, giving designers little information about how a representation might perform and be experienced across different 3D interactions (like picking up and rotating objects, or opening a container). In this work, we compare three hand representations across 12 different 3D interactions and in a longer game experience in a study of 45 participants. We find that while representation did not affect performance, representations were overall experienced differently across 3D interactions. Our work provides a deeper understanding for VR game designers about how hand representations can be used to shape play experiences.