Virtual Reality and Human Factors

Abstract

The terms “Virtual Reality”, “Artificial Reality”, and “Cyberspace” have been prevalent in the popular press recently. There has also been considerable professional interest. (See Table 1 of recent conferences). This field is an outgrowth of three factors: 1) increases in available technologies of display, storage, and CPU along with new interface devices. 2) increases in the awareness of the importance of the “user interface” and 3) an increase in the awareness of the need for better means of collaboration.

While “Virtual Reality” is arguably not completely new, it is only in the last few years that these technological and social trends mentioned above have resulted in the growth of “Virtual Reality” as a field.

We argue that “Virtual Reality” is an important phenomenon for the human factors community in at least three distinct ways. First, like other new technologies, Virtual Reality requires human factors research to reach its full potential. Second, Virtual Reality offers the human factors professional an important new tool of investigation. Third, as a tool of communication and collaboration, virtual reality may serve as a medium for collaborative design and/or a means for communicating the results of human factors issues.