This section offers information about how users should interact with the virtual world.

There are two categories of controllers that ship with our VR devices: the controlllers that ship with the mobile devices, like Gear VR and Go, and those that ship with positional tracking, like Rift.

Controllers for these platforms have different capabilities, and therefore different best practices. Mobile device controllers have 3 degree of freedom, while the Rift controller has 6 degree of freedom (commonly referred to as 3DOF and 6DOF). 3DOF controllers allow for orientation tracking of the controller, but do not track the controller’s position in space. Mobile VR devices that use 3DOF controllers only support one controller as the HMD cannot differentiate between multiple controllers. 6DOF controllers support both orientation and positional tracking allowing for a pair of controllers enabling virtual hands that can interact with the VR environment in devices like the Rift.

In general, there are some things about user input that you should know when designing your VR experience.

Maintain a 1:1 ratio between the movement of the user’s controller in the real world and the movement of the virtual representation. This can be rotational or translational movement in space. If you choose to exaggerate the user’s movement in VR, make it so exaggerated (e.g. 4x) that it is readily obvious that it is not a natural sensory experience.

Use the standard button mapping for your application. Experienced VR users are accustomed to certain buttons or movements performing certain actions. Continuing these mappings makes your application feel familiar, even to first time users. Our Input Mapping Best Practices details these mappings.

Menus should be touch or controller input based, not gazed based. This is a change from the early iterations of VR hardware but offers a more engaging and interactive experience.

VR users are both left and right handed. Accommodate both sets of users by allowing any interaction to be done with either hand if 2 controllers are present, or respect the default hand set by the system if the device supports a single controller.