The Amalgamation – Product Design Aspects for the Development of Immersive Virtual Environments

Abstract

Abstract: Interacting in an immersive virtual environment we refer to the real world. The user gets to expect real world behaviour from virtual objects and functions. We explore the idea of bringing aspects of product design to the development of input devices and interaction techniques for virtual environments. We use ergonomics and product language to design the physical input device, the virtual representation and the connection between real and virtual parts. This connection, which we call amalgamation, is the most important element of the design, since it defines, if the user rather interacts with virtual objects as “virtual products ” (via an input device), or rather interacts with an input device as a “real product ” controlling virtual content. 1