Design principles

TL;DR

Hand tracking in VR, championed by Ultraleap, prioritizes intuitive physical interactions. Poses, specific hand gestures, require learning but should be used selectively. Feedback, comfort, and understanding device tracking limits are crucial, while avoiding hand occlusion ensures seamless interaction

Bullet points

🖐 Physical Interactions: Design hand-tracking interactions that utilize our innate understanding and experience with manipulating real-world objects. This approach reduces the learning curve for new users since they can naturally engage with virtual environments as they would in reality.
🌐 Three-dimensional UI: User interface elements should not be flat. Instead, they should be designed with depth and physicality to enhance interaction. Three-dimensional interfaces enable users to manipulate and understand virtual objects better, providing a more immersive experience.
🤞 Use of Poses: A ‘pose’ refers to a specific hand position or gesture. While poses can trigger particular actions in VR, it’s essential to use them judiciously. They should be reserved for significant or valuable functions to ensure they are worth the user’s effort in learning.
🎓 Learned Interaction: Not all hand interactions are intuitive. Some, like specific poses, need to be learned. It’s crucial to provide resources, like tutorials, to guide users through these non-intuitive gestures, ensuring they understand and remember them.
📣 Feedback: In the absence of tactile feedback in VR, visual and auditory cues become vital. By incorporating clear visual indicators (like color changes) and sounds, users gain more confidence in their interactions. For an even more enhanced experience, integrating haptic feedback through Ultraleap’s mid-air haptic devices can recreate a sense of touch.
😌 Comfort: Users’ comfort should always be paramount. Design with an emphasis on minimizing large or strenuous movements, preventing users from holding hand poses for too long, and ensuring they don’t have to overextend or raise their arms frequently. Such considerations can prevent fatigue and potential discomfort.
📏 Interaction Zone: Each hand-tracking device has a specific field of view and interaction range, such as the Leap Motion Controller and Stereo IR 170. Being aware of these limits ensures interactions are designed within the effective tracking range, ensuring a seamless user experience.
🚫 Occlusion: This refers to moments when the camera can’t track a hand due to obstructions. While the Ultraleap system can handle partial occlusions, it’s vital to design interactions that prevent complete hand coverages, ensuring continuous tracking.
🖖 Tracking Loss: If a hand nears the limits of the interaction zone or the camera’s field of view, tracking might be lost. Signal this potential loss by adjusting the visual representation of the hands (like fading them out) to inform the user.
🎥 Device Awareness: Different devices have varying specifications. Being familiar with the capabilities and limitations of devices like Ultraleap hand tracking tools ensures optimized application design, catering to the device’s strengths.

Keywords

Hand Tracking: Technology that captures the movements and gestures of the human hand, allowing for interactive experiences in virtual spaces.
Ultraleap: A company specializing in hand-tracking technology, providing tools and recommendations for effective hand interactions in VR.
Physical Interactions: Design principle emphasizing the use of tangible, real-world-like interactions within VR to minimize the learning curve.
Pose: A specific hand position or gesture in VR that can trigger particular actions. Considered a “learned interaction” as it might not be immediately intuitive.
Learned Interaction: nteractions that aren’t immediately recognizable or intuitive and require some instruction or tutorial for users to understand.
Haptic Feedback: The use of touch sensations in devices, typically vibrations, to provide feedback to the user about their interactions.
Interaction Zone: The effective area within which the hand-tracking device can capture hand movements.
Occlusion: An instance where the hand-tracking camera can’t see a part of the hand due to obstruction, causing potential tracking issues.
Leap Motion Controller & Stereo IR 170: Devices by Ultraleap for hand tracking, each having different fields of view and tracking ranges.
Field of View (FOV): The observable area that a camera or viewer can see at any given moment.