Before hands disappear: Effect of early warning visual feedback method for hand tracking failures in virtual reality
Abstract
Virtual hand representation in Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) offers immersive and intuitive interactions in Virtual Reality (VR). However, current hand tracking algorithms are prone to errors, which can disrupt the user experience and hinder task performance. This paper presents a novel method for providing users with visual feedback when the quality of hand tracking decreases. Our approach employs a notification modal that warns users of potential failures. We identified three common hand tracking failure scenarios and evaluated the effectiveness of our method in two distinct VR tasks: object manipulation and complex assembly tasks. Results show that our early warning system reduces task completion time, lowers hand-tracking failures by up to 83%, decreases errors, improves system usability, and reduces cognitive load. This work contributes to the development of more robust and user-friendly VR HMD applications by enhancing hand tracking reliability, usability, and workload.
Cite this paper
Gemici M, Phadnis V, Batmaz AU (2025) Before hands disappear: Effect of early warning visual feedback method for hand tracking failures in virtual reality. PLOS ONE 20(6): e0323796. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323796
@article{gemici2025hands,
title = {Before hands disappear: Effect of early warning visual feedback method for hand tracking failures in virtual reality},
author = {Gemici, Mucahit and Phadnis, Vrushank and Batmaz, Anil Ufuk},
journal = {PLOS ONE},
volume = {20},
number = {6},
pages = {e0323796},
month = jun,
year = {2025},
issn = {1932-6203},
publisher = {Public Library of Science (PLoS)},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0323796}
}