Cross-objects user interfaces for video interaction in virtual reality museum context

Museums are good places for learning and nowadays many museums are integrating digital media such as video and increasingly moving towards using virtual reality. In the physical world people used to seek information from object surfaces e.g. posters on the wall and this has been used as a metaphor in the virtual reality museum: numerous videos were inhabited within virtual objects and shaped cross-objects user interfaces (COUIs). However, how such interfaces perform for video interactions still needs more investigations. In this study we implemented and investigated COUIs in comparison with the conventional card-style user interfaces and the plain virtual reality user interfaces in the virtual reality museum. The results reported no significant differences in the perceived usability or learning experience between these user interfaces, except the COUIs had a lower level of satisfaction than the card-style user interfaces. However, the COUIs showed greater efficiency with shorter eye fixation durations and higher saccade frequencies, and within these COUIs instances, namely the fully-detached, semi-attached, and fully-attached COUIs, the fully-attached instance was closest to the form of interacting with physical object surfaces and it reported highest efficiency as well. Rationales behind these results and implications generalising for the future design of COUIs, are discussed.