Motion Sickness Guidelines

The following are some basic considerations for avoiding motion sickness:

1. Design for minimal user head movement inside VR.
2. The main content should fit in to the field of view. If it is larger, use a scroll bar in both directions.
3. Avoid positioning UI at the extreme top or bottom of the FOV.
4. The main content should be placed along the users´ central line of sight, enabling comfortable viewing. However, ensure that the users can still gather information relating to the direction of travel in their peripheral vision.
5. Make sure peripheral vision is aligned with the users’ motion (theoretically).
6. Avoid too many simultaneously moving items/objects, however, peripheral vision is an exception to this.
7. Provide settings to enable control of moving items/objects.
8. Make sure that the UI does not incorporate contrasting colours.
9. Do not design interactions that require 360 degrees of rotation for any reason.
10. Avoid repetitive patterns on surfaces. Keep it simple.
11. Make sure that the user feels grounded and safe.
12. Avoid animations which involve elements moving across a large area.
13. Quality of the content must be at least 60PFS. No blurry and pixelated UIs.

Reading guidelines

1. If the user needs to move within the virtual environment, use RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation) for small blocks of text, displayed either in the edge-fixed (2) or in the head-fixed (3) location.
2. If reading is the primary task and the text is long and important, display text as a paragraph either in the world-fixed (1) or in the edge-fixed (2) location.

Note

(1) World-fixed - a static, in-situ text in the virtual environment.
(2) Edge-fixed - a text with static position and dynamic orientation that vertically tilts to face the user while staying attached to the virtual environment with an edge.
(3) Head-fixed - a text in a head-up display.

Next Step: Accessibility Guidelines