Flux VR: The development and validation of a heuristic checklist for virtual reality game design supporting immersion, presence, and flow
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Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) gaming is a rapidly-growing field in both technology and adoption (eMarketer, 2019). However, because the technology is relatively new, there is a lack of guidance on what constitutes good design and effective evaluations measures for VR games. Because the goals of VR gaming are immersion and presence, it’s important that effective evaluation tools are available that may catch usability problems that interfere with these goals. This study utilized an eight-step method developed by Quiñones et al. (2018) to develop and validate a heuristic checklist to evaluate VR games. The experimental VR games heuristic checklist was compared to a control checklist developed by Muñoz, Barcelos, & Chalegre (2011) for evaluating virtual worlds. Two VR games, Apex Construct and Art of Fight, were evaluated by six experts, three using the experimental checklist and three using the control checklist. Experts were also given a questionnaire used to evaluate the checklist itself, and user tests were conducted on both games to uncover usability problems that might have been missed by both lists. Expert heuristic evaluations resulted in 55 total revisions to the list, including 50 changes to existing questions and the addition of 5 new questions. The expert judgment questionnaire did not result in any adaptations to the questions but did result in the change of three heuristic category importance ratings. User tests uncovered many overlapping usability problems when compared with the heuristic evaluations, but also uncovered unique problems which resulted in the creation of 11 new checklist questions. The final heuristic checklist consists of 145 questions and 15 heuristic categories.