ShareVR: Enabling Co-Located Experiences for Virtual Reality between HMD and Non-HMD Users.

Virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMD) allow for a highly immersive experience and are currently becoming part of the living room entertainment. Current VR systems focus mainly on increasing the immersion and enjoyment for the user wearing the HMD (HMD user), resulting in all the bystanders (Non-HMD users) being excluded from the experience. We propose ShareVR, a proof-of-concept prototype using floor projection and mobile displays in combination with positional tracking to visualize the virtual world for the Non-HMD user, enabling them to interact with the HMD user and become part of the VR experience. We designed and implemented ShareVR based on the insights of an initial online survey (n=48) with early adopters of VR HMDs. We ran a user study (n=16) comparing ShareVRto a baseline condition showing how the interaction using ShareVR led to an increase of enjoyment, presence and social interaction. In a last step we implemented several experiences for ShareVR, exploring its design space and giving insights for designers of co-located asymmetric VR experiences.