Towards a taxonomy of virtual reality user interfaces

Virtual reality based user interfaces (VRUIs) are expected to bring about a revolution in computing. VR can potentially communicate large amounts of data in an easily understandable format. VR looks very promising, but it is still a very new interface technology for which very little application oriented knowledge is available. As a basis for such a future VRUI design theory, a taxonomy of VRUIs is required. A general model of human computer communication is formulated. This model constitutes a frame for the integration of partial taxonomies of human computer interaction that are found in the literature. The whole model constitutes a general user interface taxonomy. The field of VRUIs is described and delimited with respect to this taxonomy.