The virtual reality (VR) and human-computer interaction (HCI) combination has radically changed the way users approach a virtual environment, increasing the feeling of VR immersion, and improving the user experience and usability. The evolution of these two technologies led to the focus on VR locomotion and interaction. Locomotion is generally controller-based, but today hand gesture recognition methods were also used for this purpose. However, hand gestures can be stressful for the user who has to keep the gesture activation for a long time to ensure locomotion, especially continuously. Likewise, in Head Mounted Display (HMD)-based virtual environment or Spherical-based system, the use of classic controllers for the 3D scene interaction could be unnatural for the user compared to using hand gestures such \eg pinching to grab 3D objects. To address these issues, we propose a user study comparing the use of the classic controllers (six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) or trackballs) in HMD and spherical-based systems, and the hand tracking and gestures in both VR immersive modes. In particular, we focused on the possible differences between spherical-based systems and HMD in terms of the level of immersion perceived by the user, the mode of user interaction (controller and hands), on the reaction of users concerning usefulness, easiness, and behavioral intention to use.

翻译：虚拟现实（VR）与人机交互（HCI）技术的结合从根本上改变了用户探索虚拟环境的方式，增强了VR沉浸感，并优化了用户体验与可用性。这两项技术的发展使研究焦点转向了VR移动与交互。移动通常基于控制器实现，但如今手势识别方法也被用于此目的。然而，手势可能给用户带来压力，因用户需长时间保持手势激活状态以确保移动（尤其是连续性移动）。同样地，在头戴式显示器（HMD）为基础的虚拟环境或球面显示系统中，与使用手势（例如抓取3D物体的捏合手势）相比，使用传统控制器进行3D场景交互可能对用户而言不够自然。为解决这些问题，我们提出了一项用户研究，比较了在HMD和球面显示系统中使用传统控制器（六自由度6-DOF或轨迹球）与手部追踪及手势交互的差异，涵盖两种VR沉浸模式。具体而言，我们重点考察了球面显示系统与HMD在用户感知沉浸度、交互方式（控制器与手部）上的潜在差异，以及用户对交互工具有用性、易用性和行为使用意图的反应。