Head in the Clouds - Floating Locomotion in Virtual Reality

Navigating large virtual spaces within the confines of a small tracked volume in a seated position becomes a serious accessibility issue when users' lower seating position reduces their visibility and makes it uncomfortable to reach for items with ease. Hence, we propose a “floating” accessibility technique, in which a seated VR user experiences the virtual environment from the perspective of a standing eye height. We conducted a user study comparing sitting, standing and floating conditions and observed that the floating technique had no detrimental effect in comparison to the standing technique and had a slight benefit over the sitting technique.