A Comparative Study of the User Experience of Controller and Hand-Tracking Interactions in a Virtual Environment

In this study, we compared controller and hand-tracking interaction conditions for both browsing and object manipulation tasks to explore the relationship between the interaction method and user experience in a virtual environment (VE), as measured by their sense of agency (SoA), body ownership (BO), interaction fidelity (IF), immersion, usability, and workload. In the first of two experiments, a browsing task was investigated, with the participants in the controller condition experiencing greater SoA, IF, immersion, and usability than those in the hand-tracking condition, while the overall workload was higher for the hand-tracking condition. In experiment 2, we tested an object manipulation task and found a significant difference between the controller and hand-tracking conditions. Participants in the hand-tracking condition experienced higher BO, IF, immersion, and usability, though no meaningful difference was found for SoA and overall workload between the two conditions. Overall, this research confirmed the importance of the association between the interaction method and user experience in a VE.